Re: [PATCH v4 3/3] KVM: arm64: Release the ownership of the hyp rx buffer to Trustzone

Sebastian Ene
2025-03-27T09:37:40Z

On Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 04:48:33PM +0000, Quentin Perret wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 Mar 2025 at 11:39:01 (+0000), Sebastian Ene wrote:
> > Introduce the release FF-A call to notify Trustzone that the hypervisor
> > has finished copying the data from the buffer shared with Trustzone to
> > the non-secure partition.
> >
> > Reported-by: Andrei Homescu <ahomescu@google.com>
> > Signed-off-by: Sebastian Ene <sebastianene@google.com>
> > ---
> > arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/nvhe/ffa.c | 9 ++++++---
> > 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/nvhe/ffa.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/nvhe/ffa.c
> > index 6df6131f1107..ac898ea6274a 100644
> > --- a/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/nvhe/ffa.c
> > +++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/nvhe/ffa.c
> > @@ -749,6 +749,7 @@ static void do_ffa_part_get(struct arm_smccc_res *res,
> > DECLARE_REG(u32, uuid3, ctxt, 4);
> > DECLARE_REG(u32, flags, ctxt, 5);
> > u32 count, partition_sz, copy_sz;
> > + struct arm_smccc_res _res;
> >
> > hyp_spin_lock(&host_buffers.lock);
> > if (!host_buffers.rx) {
> > @@ -765,11 +766,11 @@ static void do_ffa_part_get(struct arm_smccc_res *res,
> >
> > count = res->a2;
> > if (!count)
> > - goto out_unlock;
> > + goto release_rx;
> >
> > if (hyp_ffa_version > FFA_VERSION_1_0) {
> > /* Get the number of partitions deployed in the system */
> > - if (flags & 0x1)
> > + if (flags & PARTITION_INFO_GET_RETURN_COUNT_ONLY)
> > goto out_unlock;
> >
> > partition_sz = res->a3;
> > @@ -781,10 +782,12 @@ static void do_ffa_part_get(struct arm_smccc_res *res,
> > copy_sz = partition_sz * count;
> > if (copy_sz > KVM_FFA_MBOX_NR_PAGES * PAGE_SIZE) {
> > ffa_to_smccc_res(res, FFA_RET_ABORTED);
> > - goto out_unlock;
> > + goto release_rx;
> > }
> >
> > memcpy(host_buffers.rx, hyp_buffers.rx, copy_sz);
> > +release_rx:
> > + ffa_rx_release(&_res);

Hi,

>
> I'm a bit confused about this release call here. In the pKVM FF-A proxy
> model, the hypervisor is essentially 'transparent', so do we not expect
> EL1 to issue that instead?

I think the EL1 should also issue this call irrespective of what the
hypervisor is doing. Sudeep can correct me here if I am wrong, but this
is my take on this.

I am looking at this as a way of signaling the availability of the rx
buffer across partitions. There are some calls that when invoked, they
place the buffer in a 'locked state'.

> How is EL1 supposed to know that the
> hypervisor has already sent the release call?

It doesn't need to know, it issues the call as there is no hypervisor
in-between, why would it need to know ?

> And isn't EL1 going to be
> confused if the content of the buffer is overridden before is has issued
> the release call itself?

The hypervisor should prevent changes to the buffer mapped between the
host and itself until the release_rx call is issued from the host.
If another call that wants to make use of the rx buffer sneaks in, we
would have to revoke it with BUSY until rx_release is sent.

>What would otherwise prevent that from
> happening?

>
> Thanks,
> Quentin
>

Thanks,
Sebastian

> > out_unlock:
> > hyp_spin_unlock(&host_buffers.lock);
> > }
> > --
> > 2.49.0.395.g12beb8f557-goog
> >