[RFC PATCH v1 00/17] target/riscv: Add KVM CoVE confidential VM support

Baolong Duan <[email protected]> Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:49:54 +0800
Newsgroups org.nongnu.qemu-riscv,org.nongnu.qemu-devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
This series adds RISC-V CoVE (Confidential VM Extension) support to the
virt machine when running with KVM acceleration.

CoVE is the RISC-V equivalent of AMD SEV / Intel TDX, defined by the
RISC-V AP-TEE specification [1].  A CoVE guest is a TEE VM (TVM) whose
memory and vCPU state are owned by the TEE Security Manager (TSM),
making them inaccessible to the host.

The series adds a "cove-vm" machine property to the virt board and adapts
the boot flow, interrupt routing, memory registration and device model to
the constraints of a confidential guest:

  - kernel, initrd and device tree are measured before the guest starts
  - interrupts are MSI-only (IMSIC mandatory, APLIC emulated by QEMU)
  - virtio uses modern PCI transport with VIRTIO_F_ACCESS_PLATFORM
  - vhost is disabled (host kernel has no access to guest memory)
  - vCPU threads are pinned (TSM binds vCPUs to harts)

The KVM interface used here (KVM_VM_TYPE_RISCV_COVE and
KVM_RISCV_COVE_MEASURE_REGION) is not yet part of an upstream Linux
release.  The definitions are kept locally and will be replaced by a
linux-headers update once the kernel side has been merged.

Patches 15 and 17 contain known workarounds and explicitly ask for design
guidance:

  - Patch 15 pins vCPU threads and adds a yield after KVM_RUN to avoid
    host RCU stalls.  Thread placement should be left to the user or
    management layer.

  - Patch 17 converts system_reset into a shutdown because a TVM cannot be
    recreated.  The proper approach may be to implement
    ConfidentialGuestSupport and use the existing can_rebuild_state()
    machinery.

Tested with QEMU TCG emulating a CoVE-capable Xuantie C930 platform.

[1] https://github.com/riscv-non-isa/riscv-ap-tee

Baolong Duan (17):
  docs/system/riscv/virt: document the cove-vm machine option
  hw/riscv/virt: add the cove-vm machine property
  target/riscv/kvm: create and measure a CoVE TEE VM
  accel/kvm: add kvm_gpa_to_userspace_addr()
  hw/riscv/boot: load and measure the images of a CoVE guest
  hw/riscv/virt: measure the device tree of a CoVE guest
  hw/riscv: adapt the device tree of a CoVE guest
  hw/riscv/virt: use MSIs only for a CoVE guest
  hw/intc/riscv_aplic: emulate the APLIC for a CoVE guest
  target/riscv/kvm: skip unsupported KVM requests for a CoVE guest
  hw/virtio: force modern virtio for a CoVE guest
  hw/net/virtio-net: do not use vhost for a CoVE guest
  accel/kvm: only register the DRAM slot of a CoVE guest
  accel/kvm: skip MSI route updates for a CoVE guest
  accel/kvm: pin the vCPU threads of a CoVE guest
  accel/kvm: terminate on a system event of a CoVE guest
  hw/core/machine-qmp-cmds: shut down a CoVE guest on reset

 MAINTAINERS                  |   6 ++
 accel/kvm/kvm-accel-ops.c    |  16 +++++
 accel/kvm/kvm-all.c          |  60 +++++++++++++++++
 docs/system/riscv/virt.rst   |  39 +++++++++++
 hw/core/machine-qmp-cmds.c   |  10 +++
 hw/core/machine.c            |  18 +++++
 hw/intc/riscv_aplic.c        |   9 +++
 hw/net/virtio-net.c          |   9 +++
 hw/riscv/boot.c              |  91 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
 hw/riscv/fdt-common.c        |   4 +-
 hw/riscv/trace-events        |   4 ++
 hw/riscv/virt.c              | 125 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 hw/virtio/virtio-bus.c       |  12 ++++
 hw/virtio/virtio-pci.c       |   9 ++-
 include/hw/riscv/cove.h      |  24 +++++++
 include/hw/riscv/virt.h      |   1 +
 include/system/kvm.h         |  18 +++++
 target/riscv/kvm/kvm-cpu.c   |  67 ++++++++++++++++++-
 target/riscv/kvm/kvm_riscv.h |  10 +++
 19 files changed, 508 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 include/hw/riscv/cove.h

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2.34.1