[PATCH v2 3/4] KVM: SEV: Drop page refcount early in VMSA reload

From: Ackerley Tng

Date: Tue Aug 18 2026 - 05:16:26 EST


When reloading the guest VMSA for an SEV-SNP vCPU, KVM retrieves the PFN
from guest_memfd.

Drop the page reference immediately after retrieving the PFN instead of
holding it across MMU lock acquisition in preparation for a follow-up patch
to stop returning page pointers from guest_memfd PFN lookups.

This is safe because the page's validity and presence are governed by KVM's
MMU invalidation protocol rather than the page reference.

No functional change intended.

Signed-off-by: Ackerley Tng <ackerleytng@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c | 3 +--
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
index b34b11d7f8fad..d3d620bc04dce 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kvm/svm/sev.c
@@ -4062,6 +4062,7 @@ static void __sev_snp_reload_vmsa(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, gpa_t gpa)
*/
if (kvm_gmem_get_pfn(vcpu->kvm, slot, gfn, &pfn, &page, NULL))
return;
+ kvm_release_page_clean(page);

read_lock(&kvm->mmu_lock);
/*
@@ -4076,8 +4077,6 @@ static void __sev_snp_reload_vmsa(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, gpa_t gpa)
else
svm->vmcb->control.vmsa_pa = pfn_to_hpa(pfn);
read_unlock(&kvm->mmu_lock);
-
- kvm_release_page_clean(page);
}

/*

--
2.55.0.699.gb54405d56f-goog