Re: [PATCH 3/4] KVM: x86: Recompute EFER.LMA instead of inheriting the current value on EFER writes

[Sean Christopherson]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2026, Yosry Ahmed wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 3:31 PM Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Recompute EFER.LMA on bare writes to EFER (via WRMSR or KVM_SET_MSRS)
> > instead of carrying forward the current EFER.LMA.  While it _should_ be
> > impossible for EFER.LMA to end up in an inconsistent state on such a write,
> > KVM has had a rash of exactly those bugs, mostly because SVM is quite lax
> > when it comes to consistenty checks, which in turn bleeds into KVM's nested
> > SVM implementation.  Retaining the existing EFER is also rather confusing,
> > as understanding why keeping EFER.LMA is correct requires a lot of a priori
> > knowledge of both x86-64 and KVM.
> >
> > Keep the core concept of the existing logic as a sanity check: WARN and
> > reject the write if the computed EFER.LMA would be toggled, because as
> > described above, that _should_ be impossible.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >  arch/x86/kvm/msrs.c | 14 ++++++++++++--
> >  1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/msrs.c b/arch/x86/kvm/msrs.c
> > index c3cb1575fe66..41f3ec6eb286 100644
> > --- a/arch/x86/kvm/msrs.c
> > +++ b/arch/x86/kvm/msrs.c
> > @@ -638,8 +638,18 @@ static int set_efer(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u64 efer)
> >             (vcpu->arch.efer & EFER_SVME) && !(efer & EFER_SVME))
> >                 return 1;
> >
> > -       efer &= ~EFER_LMA;
> > -       efer |= vcpu->arch.efer & EFER_LMA;
> > +       if ((efer & EFER_LME) && is_paging(vcpu) && is_pae(vcpu))
> > +               efer |= EFER_LMA;
> > +       else
> > +               efer &= ~EFER_LMA;
> 
> Does this mean we can effectively revert this patch:
> https://lore.kernel.org/kvm/20260902232028.2767071-3-seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx/?

No, because that flow goes straight through svm_set_efer(), i.e. doesn't hit this
path:

+	/* SVM ignores EFER.LMA if EFER.LME=0 (instead of failing VMRUN). */
+	if (!(svm->nested.save.efer & EFER_LME))
+		svm->nested.save.efer &= ~EFER_LMA;
+
 	svm_set_efer(vcpu, svm->nested.save.efer);