[PATCH v3 05/16] x86/virt: Force-clear X86_FEATURE_VMX if configuring root VMCS fails

From: Sean Christopherson

Date: Fri Feb 13 2026 - 20:30:28 EST


If allocating and configuring a root VMCS fails, clear X86_FEATURE_VMX in
all CPUs so that KVM doesn't need to manually check root_vmcs. As added
bonuses, clearing VMX will reflect that VMX is unusable in /proc/cpuinfo,
and will avoid a futile auto-probe of kvm-intel.ko.

WARN if allocating a root VMCS page fails, e.g. to help users figure out
why VMX is broken in the unlikely scenario something goes sideways during
boot (and because the allocation should succeed unless there's a kernel
bug). Tweak KVM's error message to suggest checking kernel logs if VMX is
unsupported (in addition to checking BIOS).

Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c | 7 ++++---
arch/x86/virt/hw.c | 14 ++++++++++++--
2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c b/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c
index abd4830f71d8..e767835a4f3a 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/vmx/vmx.c
@@ -2927,14 +2927,15 @@ static bool __kvm_is_vmx_supported(void)
return false;
}

- if (!this_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_MSR_IA32_FEAT_CTL) ||
- !this_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_VMX)) {
+ if (!this_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_MSR_IA32_FEAT_CTL)) {
pr_err("VMX not enabled (by BIOS) in MSR_IA32_FEAT_CTL on CPU %d\n", cpu);
return false;
}

- if (!per_cpu(root_vmcs, cpu))
+ if (!this_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_VMX)) {
+ pr_err("VMX not fully enabled on CPU %d. Check kernel logs and/or BIOS\n", cpu);
return false;
+ }

return true;
}
diff --git a/arch/x86/virt/hw.c b/arch/x86/virt/hw.c
index 56972f594d90..40495872fdfb 100644
--- a/arch/x86/virt/hw.c
+++ b/arch/x86/virt/hw.c
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ static __init void x86_vmx_exit(void)
}
}

-static __init int x86_vmx_init(void)
+static __init int __x86_vmx_init(void)
{
u64 basic_msr;
u32 rev_id;
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ static __init int x86_vmx_init(void)
struct vmcs *vmcs;

page = __alloc_pages_node(node, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_ZERO, 0);
- if (!page) {
+ if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!page)) {
x86_vmx_exit();
return -ENOMEM;
}
@@ -68,6 +68,16 @@ static __init int x86_vmx_init(void)

return 0;
}
+
+static __init int x86_vmx_init(void)
+{
+ int r;
+
+ r = __x86_vmx_init();
+ if (r)
+ setup_clear_cpu_cap(X86_FEATURE_VMX);
+ return r;
+}
#else
static __init int x86_vmx_init(void) { return -EOPNOTSUPP; }
#endif
--
2.53.0.310.g728cabbaf7-goog