Re: [PATCH] x86/fred: Fix early boot failures on SEV-ES/SNP guests

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Thu, Feb 05, 2026 at 11:40:11AM +0530, Nikunj A. Dadhania wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2/5/2026 11:25 AM, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 05, 2026 at 05:10:30AM +0000, Nikunj A Dadhania wrote:
> >> FRED enabled SEV-ES and SNP guests fail to boot due to the following
> >> issues in the early boot sequence:
> >>
> >> * FRED does not have a #VC exception handler in the dispatch logic
> >>
> >> * For secondary CPUs, FRED is enabled before setting up the FRED MSRs, and
> >>   console output triggers a #VC which cannot be handled
> >>
> >> * Early FRED #VC exceptions should use boot_ghcb until per-CPU GHCBs are
> >>   initialized
> >>
> >> Fix these issues to ensure SEV-ES/SNP guests can handle #VC exceptions
> >> correctly during early boot when FRED is enabled.
> >>
> >> Fixes: 14619d912b65 ("x86/fred: FRED entry/exit and dispatch code")
> >> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # 6.9+
> >> Signed-off-by: Nikunj A Dadhania <nikunj@amd.com>
> >> ---
> >>
> >> Reason to add stable tag:
> >>
> >> With FRED support for SVM here 
> >> https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260129063653.3553076-1-shivansh.dhiman@amd.com,
> >> SVM and SEV guests running 6.9 and later kernels will support FRED.
> >> However, *SEV-ES and SNP guests cannot support FRED* and will fail to boot
> >> with the following error:
> >>
> >>     [    0.005144] Using GB pages for direct mapping
> >>     [    0.008402] Initialize FRED on CPU0
> >>     qemu-system-x86_64: cpus are not resettable, terminating
> >>
> >> Three problems were identified as detailed in the commit message above and
> >> is fixed with this patch.
> >>
> >> I would like the patch to be backported to the LTS kernels (6.12 and 6.18) to
> >> ensure SEV-ES and SNP guests running these stable kernel versions can boot
> >> with FRED enabled on FRED-enabled hypervisors.
> > 
> > That sounds like new hardware support, if you really want that, why not
> > just use newer kernel versions with this fix in it?  Obviously no one is
> > running those kernels on that hardware today, so this isn't a regression :)
> 
> Fair point.
> 
> However, the situation is a bit nuanced: FRED hardware is available now, and
> users running current stable kernels as guests will encounter boot
> failures when the hypervisor is updated to support FRED. While not a traditional
> regression, it creates a compatibility gap where stable guest kernels cannot run
> on updated hypervisors.

Great, then upgrade those guest kernels as they have never been able to
run on those hypervisors :)

> Other option would be to disable FRED for SEV-ES and SNP guest in stable kernel.

That's a choice for the hypervisor vendors to choose.

thanks,

greg k-h