From: Amit Machhiwal <amachhiw@linux.ibm.com>
To: linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org, Madhavan Srinivasan <maddy@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Amit Machhiwal <amachhiw@linux.ibm.com>,
Vaibhav Jain <vaibhav@linux.ibm.com>,
Harsh Prateek Bora <harshpb@linux.ibm.com>,
Ritesh Harjani <ritesh.list@gmail.com>,
Anushree Mathur <anushree.mathur@linux.ibm.com>,
Gautam Menghani <gautam@linux.ibm.com>,
Mukesh Kumar Chaurasiya <mkchauras@gmail.com>,
Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>,
Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au>,
"Christophe Leroy (CS GROUP)" <chleroy@kernel.org>,
Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>,
kvm@vger.kernel.org, stable@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v2] KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Validate arch_compat against host compatibility mode
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2026 01:40:01 +0530 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260608201001.65760-1-amachhiw@linux.ibm.com> (raw)
On IBM POWER systems, newer processor generations can operate in
compatibility modes corresponding to earlier generations. This becomes
relevant for nested virtualization, where nested KVM guests may need to
run with a specific processor compatibility level.
Currently, when running a nested KVM guest (L2) inside a Power11 pSeries
logical partition (L1) booted in Power10 compatibility mode, the guest
fails to boot while setting 'arch_compat'. This happens because the CPU
class is derived from the hardware PVR (via mfspr()), which reflects the
physical processor generation (Power11), rather than the effective
compatibility mode (Power10).
As a result, userspace may request a Power11 arch_compat for the L2
guest. However, the L1 partition, running in Power10 compatibility, has
only negotiated support up to Power10 with the Power Hypervisor (L0).
When H_GUEST_SET_STATE is invoked with a Power11 Logical PVR, the
hypervisor rejects the request, leading to a late guest boot failure:
KVM-NESTEDv2: couldn't set guest wide elements
[..KVM reg dump..]
This situation should be detected earlier and rejected by KVM. Without
proper validation, if userspace ignores the error, the guest may continue
to boot in Power11 raw mode on a Power10 compatibility host, which should
not be allowed.
Introduce a validation mechanism that detects unsupported arch_compat
values early in the guest initialization path. When an unsupported
arch_compat is requested (e.g., Power11 on a Power10 compatibility mode
host), kvmppc_set_arch_compat() uses cpu_has_feature(CPU_FTR_P11_PVR) to
detect the mismatch and sets arch_compat to PVR_ARCH_INVALID. This
triggers kvmppc_sanity_check() to mark the vCPU as invalid by setting
vcpu->arch.sane to false. On the next vCPU run, kvmppc_vcpu_run_hv()
checks this flag and returns -EINVAL, preventing the guest from running
with an invalid processor compatibility configuration.
With this, when a Power11 arch_compat is requested on a Power10
compatibility mode host, the guest fails early during boot with:
error: kvm run failed Invalid argument
This provides a much clearer failure mode compared to the previous
behavior where the guest could boot in Power11 raw mode (if userspace
ignored the error) or fail late during H_GUEST_SET_STATE.
Suggested-by: Vaibhav Jain <vaibhav@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # v6.13+
Signed-off-by: Amit Machhiwal <amachhiw@linux.ibm.com>
---
Changes in v2:
* Fixed issue where v1 allowed guest to boot in Power11 raw mode when
userspace ignored the error, by adding validation in kvmppc_sanity_check()
to ensure early failure during vCPU run [Found the issue after posting v1,
also reported by Gautam.]
* Introduced PVR_ARCH_INVALID constant for marking invalid arch_compat
* Dropped all Reviewed-by and Tested-by tags due to code changes; requesting
fresh reviews
* v1: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260603141539.47620-1-amachhiw@linux.ibm.com/
Changes in v1:
* Moved this patch out of the v3 series [1] as discussed here [2]
* Addressed below review comments from Ritesh:
- Based the PVR validation on cpu features
- Fixed hcall name typo
- Stable backport
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260522152744.55251-1-amachhiw@linux.ibm.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260522152744.55251-2-amachhiw@linux.ibm.com/
---
arch/powerpc/include/asm/reg.h | 1 +
arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_hv.c | 15 ++++++++++++++-
arch/powerpc/kvm/powerpc.c | 3 +++
3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/reg.h b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/reg.h
index 3449dd2b577d..7472b9522f71 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/reg.h
+++ b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/reg.h
@@ -1356,6 +1356,7 @@
#define PVR_ARCH_300 0x0f000005
#define PVR_ARCH_31 0x0f000006
#define PVR_ARCH_31_P11 0x0f000007
+#define PVR_ARCH_INVALID 0xffffffff
/* Macros for setting and retrieving special purpose registers */
#ifndef __ASSEMBLER__
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_hv.c b/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_hv.c
index 61dbeea317f3..f9380ef65750 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_hv.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kvm/book3s_hv.c
@@ -446,7 +446,19 @@ static int kvmppc_set_arch_compat(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 arch_compat)
guest_pcr_bit = PCR_ARCH_300;
break;
case PVR_ARCH_31:
+ guest_pcr_bit = PCR_ARCH_31;
+ break;
case PVR_ARCH_31_P11:
+ /*
+ * Need to check this for ISA 3.1, as Power10 and
+ * Power11 share the same PCR. For any subsequent ISA
+ * versions, this will be taken care of by the guest vs
+ * host PCR comparison below.
+ */
+ if (!cpu_has_feature(CPU_FTR_P11_PVR)) {
+ arch_compat = PVR_ARCH_INVALID;
+ goto out;
+ }
guest_pcr_bit = PCR_ARCH_31;
break;
default:
@@ -469,6 +481,7 @@ static int kvmppc_set_arch_compat(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 arch_compat)
return -EINVAL;
}
+out:
spin_lock(&vc->lock);
vc->arch_compat = arch_compat;
kvmhv_nestedv2_mark_dirty(vcpu, KVMPPC_GSID_LOGICAL_PVR);
@@ -479,7 +492,7 @@ static int kvmppc_set_arch_compat(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 arch_compat)
vc->pcr = (host_pcr_bit - guest_pcr_bit) | PCR_MASK;
spin_unlock(&vc->lock);
- return 0;
+ return kvmppc_sanity_check(vcpu);
}
static void kvmppc_dump_regs(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kvm/powerpc.c b/arch/powerpc/kvm/powerpc.c
index 00302399fc37..7e2d489af642 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kvm/powerpc.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kvm/powerpc.c
@@ -258,6 +258,9 @@ int kvmppc_sanity_check(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
if (!vcpu->arch.pvr)
goto out;
+ if (vcpu->arch.vcore->arch_compat == PVR_ARCH_INVALID)
+ goto out;
+
/* PAPR only works with book3s_64 */
if ((vcpu->arch.cpu_type != KVM_CPU_3S_64) && vcpu->arch.papr_enabled)
goto out;
base-commit: 4549871118cf616eecdd2d939f78e3b9e1dddc48
--
2.50.1 (Apple Git-155)
next reply other threads:[~2026-06-08 20:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-06-08 20:10 Amit Machhiwal [this message]
2026-06-09 3:49 ` [PATCH v2] KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Validate arch_compat against host compatibility mode Vaibhav Jain
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