[PATCH v9 16/41] KVM: guest_memfd: Zero page while getting pfn

Ackerley Tng via B4 Relay <[email protected]> Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:35:15 -0700
Newsgroups dev.linux.lists.linux-coco,org.kernel.feeds.b4-sent,org.kernel.vger.kvm,org.kernel.vger.linux-doc,org.kernel.vger.linux-kernel,org.kernel.vger.linux-kselftest,org.kernel.vger.linux-trace-kernel,org.kvack.linux-mm
Message-ID <[email protected]>
From: Ackerley Tng <[email protected]>

Move the folio initialization logic from kvm_gmem_get_pfn() into
__kvm_gmem_get_pfn() to also zero pages if the page is to be used in
kvm_gmem_populate().

With in-place conversion, the existing data in a guest_memfd page can be
populated into guest memory through platform-specific ioctls.

Without first zeroing the page obtained using __kvm_gmem_get_pfn(), it
might contain uninitialized host memory, which would leak to the guest if
the populate completes.

guest_memfd pages are zeroed at most once in the page's entire lifetime
with guest_memfd, and that is tracked using the uptodate flag.

Zeroing the page in __kvm_gmem_get_pfn() is chosen over zeroing in
kvm_gmem_get_folio() since other flows, such as a future write() syscall,
can get a page, write to the page and then set page uptodate without
zeroing.

This aligns with the concept of zeroing before first use - the other place
where zeroing happens is in kvm_gmem_fault_user_mapping().

Don't mark the page uptodate again after populating, since the page would
already be marked uptodate before the post_populate() call.

Reviewed-by: Fuad Tabba <[email protected]>
Tested-by: Shivank Garg <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Ackerley Tng <[email protected]>
---
 virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c | 12 +++++-------
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c b/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
index 505bb6747620b..ea2752989f8bd 100644
--- a/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
+++ b/virt/kvm/guest_memfd.c
@@ -1078,6 +1078,11 @@ static struct folio *__kvm_gmem_get_pfn(struct file *file,
 		return ERR_PTR(-EHWPOISON);
 	}
 
+	if (!folio_test_uptodate(folio)) {
+		clear_highpage(folio_page(folio, 0));
+		folio_mark_uptodate(folio);
+	}
+
 	*pfn = folio_file_pfn(folio, index);
 	if (max_order)
 		*max_order = 0;
@@ -1107,11 +1112,6 @@ int kvm_gmem_get_pfn(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_memory_slot *slot,
 		goto out;
 	}
 
-	if (!folio_test_uptodate(folio)) {
-		clear_highpage(folio_page(folio, 0));
-		folio_mark_uptodate(folio);
-	}
-
 #ifdef CONFIG_HAVE_KVM_ARCH_GMEM_CONVERT
 	if (kvm_gmem_is_private_mem(file_inode(file), index))
 		r = kvm_arch_gmem_make_private(kvm, gfn, *pfn,
@@ -1171,8 +1171,6 @@ static long __kvm_gmem_populate(struct kvm *kvm, struct kvm_memory_slot *slot,
 	}
 
 	ret = post_populate(kvm, gfn, pfn, src_page, opaque);
-	if (!ret)
-		folio_mark_uptodate(folio);
 
 out_put_folio:
 	folio_put(folio);

-- 
2.55.0.508.g3f0d502094-goog