Re: [PATCH v7 06/12] KVM: guest_memfd: add module param for disabling TLB flushing

Roy, Patrick
2025-09-25T15:51:06Z

On Thu, 2025-09-25 at 12:02 +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
> On 24.09.25 17:22, Roy, Patrick wrote:
>> Add an option to not perform TLB flushes after direct map manipulations.
>> TLB flushes result in a up to 40x elongation of page faults in
>> guest_memfd (scaling with the number of CPU cores), or a 5x elongation
>> of memory population, which is inacceptable when wanting to use direct
>> map removed guest_memfd as a drop-in replacement for existing workloads.
>>
>> TLB flushes are not needed for functional correctness (the virt->phys
>> mapping technically stays "correct", the kernel should simply not use it
>> for a while), so we can skip them to keep performance in-line with
>> "traditional" VMs.
>>
>> Enabling this option means that the desired protection from
>> Spectre-style attacks is not perfect, as an attacker could try to
>> prevent a stale TLB entry from getting evicted, keeping it alive until
>> the page it refers to is used by the guest for some sensitive data, and
>> then targeting it using a spectre-gadget.
>>
>> Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
>> Signed-off-by: Patrick Roy <roypat@amazon.co.uk>
>> ---
>> include/linux/kvm_host.h | 1 +
>> virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c | 3 ++-
>> virt/kvm/kvm_main.c | 3 +++
>> 3 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/include/linux/kvm_host.h b/include/linux/kvm_host.h
>> index 73a15cade54a..4d2bc18860fc 100644
>> --- a/include/linux/kvm_host.h
>> +++ b/include/linux/kvm_host.h
>> @@ -2298,6 +2298,7 @@ extern unsigned int halt_poll_ns;
>> extern unsigned int halt_poll_ns_grow;
>> extern unsigned int halt_poll_ns_grow_start;
>> extern unsigned int halt_poll_ns_shrink;
>> +extern bool guest_memfd_tlb_flush;
>>
>> struct kvm_device {
>> const struct kvm_device_ops *ops;
>> diff --git a/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c b/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
>> index b7129c4868c5..d8dd24459f0d 100644
>> --- a/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
>> +++ b/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
>> @@ -63,7 +63,8 @@ static int kvm_gmem_folio_zap_direct_map(struct folio *folio)
>> if (!r) {
>> unsigned long addr = (unsigned long) folio_address(folio);
>> folio->private = (void *) ((u64) folio->private & KVM_GMEM_FOLIO_NO_DIRECT_MAP);
>> - flush_tlb_kernel_range(addr, addr + folio_size(folio));
>> + if (guest_memfd_tlb_flush)
>> + flush_tlb_kernel_range(addr, addr + folio_size(folio));
>> }
>>
>> return r;
>> diff --git a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
>> index b5e702d95230..753c06ebba7f 100644
>> --- a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
>> +++ b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
>> @@ -95,6 +95,9 @@ unsigned int halt_poll_ns_shrink = 2;
>> module_param(halt_poll_ns_shrink, uint, 0644);
>> EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(halt_poll_ns_shrink);
>>
>> +bool guest_memfd_tlb_flush = true;
>> +module_param(guest_memfd_tlb_flush, bool, 0444);
>
> The parameter name is a bit too generic. I think you somehow have to
> incorporate the "direct_map" aspects.

Fair :)

> Also, I wonder if this could be a capability per vm/guest_memfd?

I don't really have any opinions on how to expose this knob, but I
thought capabilities should be additive? (e.g. we only have
KVM_ENABLE_EXTENSION(), and then having a capability with a negative
polarity "enable to _not_ do TLB flushes" is a bit weird in my head).
Then again, if people are fine having TLB flushes be opt-in instead of
opt-out (Will's comment on v6 makes me believe that the opt-out itself
might already be controversial for arm64), a capability would work.

> Then, you could also nicely document the semantics, considerations,
> impact etc :)

Yup, I got so lost in trying to figure out why flush_kernel_tlb_range()
didnt refused to let itself be exported that docs slipped my mind haha.

> --
> Cheers
>
> David / dhildenb
>

Best,
Patrick