Re: [PATCH] KVM: arm64: ptdump: Flush the last region

From: Wei-Lin Chang

Date: Mon Jul 20 2026 - 17:21:43 EST


On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 01:37:51PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 11:58:44AM +0100, Wei-Lin Chang wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 09:35:01AM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 12:12:33AM +0100, Wei-Lin Chang wrote:
> > > > @@ -155,11 +155,13 @@ static int kvm_ptdump_guest_show(struct seq_file *m, void *unused)
> > > > .seq = m,
> > > > };
> > > >
> > > > - write_lock(&kvm->mmu_lock);
> > > > + guard(write_lock)(&kvm->mmu_lock);
> > > > ret = kvm_pgtable_walk(mmu->pgt, 0, BIT(mmu->pgt->ia_bits), &walker);
> > > > - write_unlock(&kvm->mmu_lock);
> > > > + if (ret)
> > > > + return ret;
> > > > + note_page(&st->parser_state.ptdump, BIT(mmu->pgt->ia_bits), -1, 0);
> > >
> > > This can be:
> > >
> > > note_page_flush(&st->parser_state.ptdump);
> > >
> > > The level change alone should trigger the dump, so the address doesn't
> > > need to be at the end of the guest IPA space.
> > >
> > > Importantly, note_page_flush() will pass 0 as the address, which won't
> > > trigger the checks you try to suppress below.
> > >
> > > Please use note_page_flush() here, and drop the changes to
> > > arch/arm64/mm/ptdump.c.
> >
> > Sorry, I shouldn't have omitted this information, but I did try
> > note_page_flush(). And it gives something like this in the last row:
> >
> > 0x00000000ffc00000-0x0000000000000000 17592186040324M 2 R W px ux AF BLK
> >
> > The astronomical size is from (addr - st->start_address). As IA bits for
> > stage-2 are not close to 64, we'll have large sizes for the last row.
>
> Ok. That's a bug in the current implementation of note_page_flush(),
> then. The *intent* is that note_page_flush() is used to terminate
> output, and we should mak it work.

Thanks for the suggestion, I agree.

>
> Do we need to pass additional information, or do we have the necessary
> values in (or accessible from) struct ptdump_state?

There is struct ptdump_state.range[], and I think we can get the end
address of the ptdump from that.

>
> > That's one of the reasons I chose to call note_page() with
> > BIT(pgtable->ia_bits) as addr, to end the ptdump at the end of the guest
> > IPA space.
> >
> > Additionally, the last row is combining two ranges:
> >
> > 1. 0x00000000ffc00000-0x0000000100000000 4M 2 R W px ux AF BLK
> > 2. 0x0000000100000000-0x0000000000000000 BIG_SIZE - (empty prot)
> >
> > The attributes are wrong for the large range after
> > BIT(pgtable->ia_bits). This is because before dumping the last row, the
> > ptdump code is waiting to be notified of the end of the final region
> > with all those {R, W, px, ux, AF, BLK} attributes. Using
> > note_page_flush() essentially tells it the valid range ends at 1 << 64.
> > So actually using note_page() with BIT(pgtable->ia_bits) is required for
> > correctness.
> >
> > The kernel ptdump is not affected by this (at least from my quick test):
> >
> > 0xffffffffff6fe000-0xffffffffff800000 1032K PTE
> > 0xffffffffff800000-0x0000000000000000 8M PMD
>
> Yes, it's not affected because its final VA is 0xffffffffffffffff (i.e.
> 2^64i - 1), and so using 0 as the next address does the right thing
> modulo 64 bits.
>
> We use ptdump for non-kernel tables today (e.g. the EFI mm), so
> presumably they suffer the same problem?

Cool, I didn't know about efi_mm and its ptdump! After looking at it, I
think yes it also has this problem, since its a ttbr0 ptdump.

So I plan:
1. In note_page_flush, use ptdump_state.range[] to determine the end
address (the last range with start != end).
2. In KVM ptdump, initialize ptdump_state.range[], and call
note_page_flush() at the end of the walk.

For the extra marker name dumps, we can simply change the second
marker's start_address from BIT(pgtable->ia_bits) to ~0UL so it doesn't
trigger the marker name dump.

Hope these sound good!

Thanks,
Wei-Lin Chang

>
> Mark.