[PATCH 3/3] KVM: arm64: Sanitise MTE tags when a permission fault installs a mapping

From: Fuad Tabba

Date: Mon Oct 19 2026 - 09:23:59 EST


The stage-2 fault path sanitises MTE tags only on translation faults, as
a permission fault normally just relaxes an existing leaf. However, when
the page is backed by a THP, a permission fault at page granule installs
a block whose other pages may never have been mapped or sanitised. Once
dirty logging is off, a guest write to a page mapped read-only during
logging installs the block, and the guest can read the tags those pages'
previous owners left.

Sanitise whenever the fault path calls kvm_pgtable_stage2_map() rather
than relaxing permissions. If the VMM replaces the VMA after the guest
takes a permission fault but before vma_lookup(), that path would map
and sanitise memory from the new VMA without checking it. Run the
VM_MTE_ALLOWED check in kvm_s2_fault_compute_prot() on permission
faults too.

Fixes: ea7fc1bb1cd1b ("KVM: arm64: Introduce MTE VM feature")
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Fuad Tabba <fuad.tabba@xxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
index 48a08b608ea72..208fcae80f67f 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kvm/mmu.c
@@ -2005,7 +2005,7 @@ static int kvm_s2_fault_compute_prot(const struct kvm_s2_fault_desc *s2fd,
if (s2fd->nested)
*prot = adjust_nested_exec_perms(kvm, s2fd->nested, *prot);

- if (!kvm_s2_fault_is_perm(s2fd) && !s2vi->map_non_cacheable && kvm_has_mte(kvm)) {
+ if (!s2vi->map_non_cacheable && kvm_has_mte(kvm)) {
/* Check the VMM hasn't introduced a new disallowed VMA */
if (!s2vi->mte_allowed)
return -EFAULT;
@@ -2060,7 +2060,7 @@ static int kvm_s2_fault_map(const struct kvm_s2_fault_desc *s2fd,
}
}

- if (!perm_fault_granule && !s2vi->map_non_cacheable && kvm_has_mte(kvm))
+ if (mapping_size != perm_fault_granule && !s2vi->map_non_cacheable && kvm_has_mte(kvm))
sanitise_mte_tags(kvm, pfn, mapping_size);

/*
--
2.47.3