Re: [PATCH v1 0/2] x86/vmware: Share steal-time storage in encrypted guests

[Kiryl Shutsemau]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2026 at 11:41:19AM -0400, Zack Rusin wrote:
> > I acked 1/2, but I don't like where 2/2 does the conversion.
> 
> I saw that, thank you. Since I'll be respinning v2 of this I can go
> ahead and drop the unused DECLARE_PER_CPU_DECRYPTED in that one if you
> want as well.

Yes, please.

> I went through the linked thread, including the dropped 2022
> Quote-buffer alias approach and the 2024 netvsc work's kexec
> regression, fix and re-review discussion. I will keep TDX vmalloc
> support out of this series and correct the explanation to cover alias
> consistency, direct-map splitting and load_unaligned_zeropad(),
> including removing the suggestion that per-page GPA lookup alone
> resolves it.
> 
> After tracing the boot paths, I think there are two distinct pieces
> here. The SEV boot GHCB needs .bss..decrypted before BSS is cleared,
> whereas the SMP per-CPU instances do not exist until
> setup_per_cpu_areas(). KVM then registers its boot-CPU per-CPU buffers
> in smp_prepare_boot_cpu(), so the common conversion needs the early
> primitive you proposed. A shared early_initcall would be too late for
> KVM. The UP registration path probably also needs handling separately

Agreed on all of that. Leave .bss..decrypted alone in this series; the
SEV boot GHCB pins its conversion to the startup code and nothing on
TDX needs it today.

With the primitive called before smp_prepare_boot_cpu() there is no
readiness state to track.

For the vmalloc-backed case, I would rather not handle it at all. Force
the embed allocator when memory encryption is on: ignore
percpu_alloc=page with a warning and don't fall back to page mode if
embed fails, just let it hit the existing panic. On 64-bit embed only
fails on memblock exhaustion at boot or when the NUMA groups spread over
more than 3/4 of vmalloc space. Neither happens in a guest.

> My suggestion would be to do one of two things (or at least I think
> those two options are realistic to me, given that I'm no expert here):
> - add the central per-CPU infrastructure and migrate KVM/VMware
> together, removing both loops and putting the TDX vmalloc rejection
> and readiness state in common code. Would you and the KVM maintainers
> be happy with that first, and generalizing .bss..decrypted separately
> while preserving its earliest SEV setup? afaict the latter also needs
> to broaden the annotation and linker guards, and changes kvmclock
> storage and sharing on TDX-only builds.
> - a smaller VMware fix using a separately allocated, direct-mapped
> page per CPU while the common infrastructure is developed. Using the
> normal allocator would also defer ordinary-guest registration, unless
> I kept their current static storage as a second path. This option
> would retain caller-managed sharing and buffer lifetime handling.
> 
> The second option is, of course, easier for me, but I'm happy to do
> the first to get steal-time storage working for us. Do you have any
> thoughts on this?

The first one, please. It is the better long-term shape and it removes
the KVM loop as well, so the per-CPU section finally does what its
name says.

-- 
  Kiryl Shutsemau / Kirill A. Shutemov