[PATCH] KVM: x86: Check for invalid/obsolete root *after* making MMU pages available
From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Tue Jul 21 2026 - 06:36:21 EST
From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Check for a "stale" page fault, i.e. for an invalid and/or obsolete root,
after making MMU pages available for the shadow MMU. If reclaiming shadow
pages zaps an in-use root, i.e. marks it invalid, then KVM will attempt to
map memory into an invalid root. On its own, populating an invalid root is
"fine", but because child shadow pages inherit their parent's role, any
children created during the map/fetch will be created as invalid pages,
thus violating KVM's invariant that invalid pages are never on the list of
active MMU pages.
Note, the underlying flaw has existed since KVM first started tracking
invalid roots in 2008 (commit 2e53d63acba7, "KVM: MMU: ignore zapped root
pagetables"), but the true badness only came along in 2020 (Linux 5.9)
with the invariant that invalid shadow pages can't be on the list of
active pages.
Note #2, inheriting role.invalid when creating child shadow pages is also
far from ideal; that flaw will be addressed separately.
Reported-by: Hyunwoo Kim <imv4bel@xxxxxxxxx>
Fixes: f95eec9bed76 ("KVM: x86/mmu: Don't put invalid SPs back on the list of active pages")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c | 9 +++++----
arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h | 10 ++++++----
2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
index 234d0a95abf5..41f92ed1ca37 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/mmu.c
@@ -4852,16 +4852,17 @@ static int direct_page_fault(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct kvm_page_fault *fault
if (r != RET_PF_CONTINUE)
return r;
- r = RET_PF_RETRY;
write_lock(&vcpu->kvm->mmu_lock);
- if (is_page_fault_stale(vcpu, fault))
- goto out_unlock;
-
r = make_mmu_pages_available(vcpu);
if (r)
goto out_unlock;
+ if (is_page_fault_stale(vcpu, fault)) {
+ r = RET_PF_RETRY;
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
+
r = direct_map(vcpu, fault);
out_unlock:
diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h
index df3ae0c7ec2c..1ba840a73b7a 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/mmu/paging_tmpl.h
@@ -864,15 +864,17 @@ static int FNAME(page_fault)(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, struct kvm_page_fault *fault
}
#endif
- r = RET_PF_RETRY;
write_lock(&vcpu->kvm->mmu_lock);
- if (is_page_fault_stale(vcpu, fault))
- goto out_unlock;
-
r = make_mmu_pages_available(vcpu);
if (r)
goto out_unlock;
+
+ if (is_page_fault_stale(vcpu, fault)) {
+ r = RET_PF_RETRY;
+ goto out_unlock;
+ }
+
r = FNAME(fetch)(vcpu, fault, &walker);
out_unlock:
--
2.55.0