[PATCH 1/2] KVM: Stop KVM_PRE_FAULT_MEMORY when the vCPU's dirty ring is full

From: Fuad Tabba

Date: Tue Nov 10 2026 - 06:12:18 EST


Pre-faulting can map a dirty-logged page writable, which pushes it to
the vCPU's dirty ring. KVM_RUN exits with KVM_EXIT_DIRTY_RING_FULL
before the ring overflows, but the pre-fault loop never checks it, so
one call over more such pages than the ring has free trips the WARN in
kvm_dirty_ring_push() and overwrites entries userspace hasn't
harvested. On x86:

WARNING: arch/x86/kvm/../../../virt/kvm/dirty_ring.c:225 at kvm_dirty_ring_push+0x7a/0xd0
Call Trace:
make_spte+0x2cc/0x450
kvm_tdp_mmu_map+0x5e1/0x7f0
kvm_tdp_page_fault+0x12c/0x1b0
kvm_mmu_do_page_fault+0x181/0x250
kvm_arch_vcpu_pre_fault_memory+0x136/0x1d0
kvm_vcpu_pre_fault_memory+0xcf/0x180
kvm_vcpu_ioctl+0x455/0x770

Stop the loop once the ring is soft full, returning the pages already
processed, or -ENOSPC when there are none, since a retry can't succeed
until userspace harvests the ring. kvm_dirty_ring_check_request() fills
in a KVM_RUN exit, so test the ring's state directly. The stub for
!HAVE_KVM_DIRTY_RING is for s390, which has the ioctl but no ring.

Fixes: bc1a5cd002116 ("KVM: Add KVM_PRE_FAULT_MEMORY vcpu ioctl to pre-populate guest memory")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Fuad Tabba <fuad.tabba@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst | 9 +++++++--
include/linux/kvm_dirty_ring.h | 6 ++++++
virt/kvm/dirty_ring.c | 2 +-
virt/kvm/kvm_main.c | 6 ++++++
4 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
index e95c9cda085d9..89eb6be9bc6e3 100644
--- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst
@@ -6544,6 +6544,7 @@ Errors:
ENOENT The specified `gpa` is outside defined memslots.
ENOEXEC The vCPU has not been initialised (arm64).
EINTR An unmasked signal is pending and no page was processed.
+ ENOSPC The vCPU's dirty ring is full and no page was processed.
EFAULT The parameter address was invalid.
EHWPOISON A poisoned host page was encountered.
EOPNOTSUPP Mapping memory for a GPA is unsupported by the
@@ -6588,7 +6589,9 @@ case, the ioctl can be called in parallel.

When the ioctl returns, the input values are updated to point to the
remaining range. If `size` > 0 on return, the caller can just issue
-the ioctl again with the same `struct kvm_map_memory` argument.
+the ioctl again with the same `struct kvm_pre_fault_memory` argument.
+If that fails with ENOSPC, the vCPU's dirty ring has to be harvested
+and reset first.

On x86, shadow page tables cannot support this ioctl because they
are indexed by virtual address or nested guest physical address.
@@ -8957,7 +8960,9 @@ Therefore, the ioctl must be called *before* reading the content of
the dirty pages.

The dirty ring can get full. When it happens, the KVM_RUN of the
-vcpu will return with exit reason KVM_EXIT_DIRTY_RING_FULL.
+vcpu will return with exit reason KVM_EXIT_DIRTY_RING_FULL, and
+KVM_PRE_FAULT_MEMORY on the vcpu will process no more pages until the
+ring has been harvested and reset.

The dirty ring interface has a major difference comparing to the
KVM_GET_DIRTY_LOG interface in that, when reading the dirty ring from
diff --git a/include/linux/kvm_dirty_ring.h b/include/linux/kvm_dirty_ring.h
index eb10d87adf7d5..88b4f2a009274 100644
--- a/include/linux/kvm_dirty_ring.h
+++ b/include/linux/kvm_dirty_ring.h
@@ -60,6 +60,11 @@ static inline void kvm_dirty_ring_push(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu,
{
}

+static inline bool kvm_dirty_ring_soft_full(struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring)
+{
+ return false;
+}
+
static inline struct page *kvm_dirty_ring_get_page(struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring,
u32 offset)
{
@@ -81,6 +86,7 @@ int kvm_dirty_ring_alloc(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring,
int kvm_dirty_ring_reset(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring,
int *nr_entries_reset);
void kvm_dirty_ring_push(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 slot, u64 offset);
+bool kvm_dirty_ring_soft_full(struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring);

bool kvm_dirty_ring_check_request(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu);

diff --git a/virt/kvm/dirty_ring.c b/virt/kvm/dirty_ring.c
index 572b854edf740..f73f92102cb7a 100644
--- a/virt/kvm/dirty_ring.c
+++ b/virt/kvm/dirty_ring.c
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ static u32 kvm_dirty_ring_used(struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring)
return READ_ONCE(ring->dirty_index) - READ_ONCE(ring->reset_index);
}

-static bool kvm_dirty_ring_soft_full(struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring)
+bool kvm_dirty_ring_soft_full(struct kvm_dirty_ring *ring)
{
return kvm_dirty_ring_used(ring) >= ring->soft_limit;
}
diff --git a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
index cf4cb586f1407..da1b76ceb65e3 100644
--- a/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
+++ b/virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
@@ -4461,6 +4461,12 @@ static int kvm_vcpu_pre_fault_memory(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu,
break;
}

+ /* Like KVM_RUN: only the iteration crossing the soft limit uses the reserve. */
+ if (vcpu->kvm->dirty_ring_size && kvm_dirty_ring_soft_full(&vcpu->dirty_ring)) {
+ r = -ENOSPC;
+ break;
+ }
+
r = kvm_arch_vcpu_pre_fault_memory(vcpu, range);
if (WARN_ON_ONCE(r == 0 || r == -EIO))
break;
--
2.47.3