Re: [PATCH v19] arm64: mm: Handle Granule Protection Faults (GPFs)

From: Catalin Marinas

Date: Thu Oct 01 2026 - 05:52:57 EST


On Wed, Sep 30, 2026 at 05:49:30PM +0100, Suzuki K Poulose wrote:
> From: Steven Price <steven.price@xxxxxxx>
>
> If the host attempts to access granules that have been delegated to RMM
> (for use as an RMM object or Realm Data), these accesses will be caught
> and will trigger a Granule Protection Fault (GPF).
>
> A fault during a page walk signals a bug in the kernel and is handled by
> oopsing the kernel. A non-page walk fault could be caused by:
>
> * Userspace having access to a page which has been delegated. We don't allow
> mapping a delegated page (which may have Realm VM private data) to EL0.
> But if we do encounter this, trigger a SIGBUS to allow debugging
>
> * A kernel mode access is even more serious, except for the cases where :
> - Benign overreads e.g. load_unaligned_zeropad(), we should be able to fix
> this up.
> - A kdump kernel trying to access delegated page (donated by the primary
> kernel). We do not support this yet, but can be added in the later series.
>
> There is ongoing work to unmap the guest_memfd backed private pages
> from the linear map. We would additionally need to unmap the other
> delegated pages too. For now handle the GPF and only fixing up kernel mode
> accesses via kernel VA (which would cover both the legitimate cases above)
>
> Reviewed-by: Gavin Shan <gshan@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Steven Price <steven.price@xxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> Changes since v18:
> * Only fixup accesses via kernel VA
> Changes since v17:
> * Pass untagged address to die_kernel_fault() - Sashiko
> * Explicitly check !user_mode() for fixups - Catalin
> * Switch to BUS_OBJERR for si_code from SI_KERNEL - Catalin
> Changes since v16:
> * Update the commit description to indicate why we try to fixup GPFs
> Changes since v10:
> * Don't call arm64_notify_die() in do_gpf() but simply return 1.
> Changes since v2:
> * Include missing "Granule Protection Fault at level -1"
> ---
> arch/arm64/mm/fault.c | 35 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
> 1 file changed, 29 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c b/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
> index 75c3e463df2ef..ded9288a5dd2f 100644
> --- a/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
> +++ b/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
> @@ -914,6 +914,29 @@ static int do_tag_check_fault(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr,
> return 0;
> }
>
> +static int do_gpf_ptw(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
> +{
> + const struct fault_info *inf = esr_to_fault_info(esr);
> + unsigned long addr = untagged_addr(far);
> +
> + die_kernel_fault(inf->name, addr, esr, regs);
> + return 0;
> +}
> +
> +static int do_gpf(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
> +{
> + /*
> + * Userspace must not have a delegated page mapped in. If the kernel
> + * is made to access it, then we have a serious problem.
> + * Only fixup if the access came via kernel VA. e.g., load_unaligned_zeropad()
> + */
> + if (!user_mode(regs) && !is_el1_instruction_abort(esr) &&
> + !is_ttbr0_addr(untagged_addr(far)) && fixup_exception(regs, esr))
> + return 0;
> +
> + return 1;
> +}

The logic looks fine to me, so:

Reviewed-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@xxxxxxx>

Whether we want to unmap the delegated pages eventually (and not just
guest_memfd), given that we get a synchronous fault architecturally, I'm
not yet convinced it's worth it (it fragments the linear map).

--
Catalin