Re: [PATCH v7 23/24] iommu/arm-smmu-v3-kvm: Enable nesting

[Mostafa Saleh]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 05:59:50PM -0300, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > [ ... 129 lines skipped ... ]
> > +	ret = smmu_attach_stage_2(&target);
> > +	if (ret)
> > +		return ret;
> > +	hyp_spin_lock(&smmu->hw_lock);
> > +	cur_valid = FIELD_GET(STRTAB_STE_0_V, le64_to_cpu(hyp_ste_ptr->data[0]));
> > +	target_cfg = FIELD_GET(STRTAB_STE_0_CFG, le64_to_cpu(target.data[0]));
> > +	target_valid = FIELD_GET(STRTAB_STE_0_V, le64_to_cpu(target.data[0]));
> > +	if ((cur_valid && !target_valid) ||
> > +	    (target_cfg == STRTAB_STE_0_CFG_ABORT)) {
> > +		WRITE_ONCE(hyp_ste_ptr->data[0], target.data[0]);
> > +		WARN_ON(smmu_send_cmd(smmu, &cfgi_cmd));
> > +		for (i = 1; i < STRTAB_STE_DWORDS; i++)
> > +			WRITE_ONCE(hyp_ste_ptr->data[i], target.data[i]);
> > +	} else {
> > +		for (i = 1; i < STRTAB_STE_DWORDS; i++)
> > +			WRITE_ONCE(hyp_ste_ptr->data[i], target.data[i]);
> > +		WARN_ON(smmu_send_cmd(smmu, &cfgi_cmd));
> > +		WRITE_ONCE(hyp_ste_ptr->data[0], target.data[0]);
> > +	}
> 
> This doesn't look good enough, a driver can't safe writely to a valid
> STE in any order like this, and it can't make it non-valid or risk
> breaking guests. We had this bug in linux already, the hitless STE
> update in the hypervisor is mandatory for linux guests using PASID.

This piggy-backs on the kernel algorithm, as described in the comment
in this patch:
+       /*
+        * Summary of each host emulated state vs real HW.
+        * |    Host    |       HW      |
+        * ==============================
+        * |    V=0     |       V=0     |
+        * |    Abort   |       Abort   |
+        * |    Bypass  |       S2      |
+        * |    S1      |       S1+S2   |
+        *
+        * For the host, any V=0 transition is not hitless, all other permutations of
+        * (abort, bypass, S1) transitions are hitless.
+        * For the HW state, any V=0 transition is not hitless, as all the S2 config is
+        * always the same (ttbr, vtcr...), all other transitions should be hitless too.
+        * However, the host is not trusted, which means that any V=0 <=> V=1 transitions
+        * or any transition to an abort STE we need to enforce writing order of the STE
+        * dword 0 and add CFGI.
+        * Otherwise, we write the STE in the opposite order to cover cases from abort
+        * to S2 or nested.
+        */

So this way, the hypervisor doesn't break the STE and keeps the host
STE transitions hitless.

Or there is an example that I missed and is broken by this?

Thanks,
Mostafa

> 
> You should use the STE programmer logic from the main driver which
> gets this right for every scenario a linux guest can trigger. I don't
> think there is anything about it that would be difficult for pkvm.
> 
> -- 
> Jason