On 10/13/25 11:59 AM, Jiaqi Yan wrote:
Document the new userspace-visible features and APIs for handling synchronous external abort (SEA)
- KVM_CAP_ARM_SEA_TO_USER: How userspace enables the new feature.
- KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA: exit userspace gets when it needs to handle SEA and what userspace gets while taking the SEA.
Signed-off-by: Jiaqi Yan jiaqiyan@google.com
Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst | 61 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 61 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst index 6ae24c5ca5598..43bc2a1d78e01 100644 --- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst +++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst @@ -7272,6 +7272,55 @@ exit, even without calls to ``KVM_ENABLE_CAP`` or similar. In this case, it will enter with output fields already valid; in the common case, the ``unknown.ret`` field of the union will be ``TDVMCALL_STATUS_SUBFUNC_UNSUPPORTED``. Userspace need not do anything if it does not wish to support a TDVMCALL.
+::
/* KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA */struct {- #define KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA_FLAG_GPA_VALID (1ULL << 0)
__u64 flags;__u64 esr;__u64 gva;__u64 gpa;} arm_sea;+Used on arm64 systems. When the VM capability KVM_CAP_ARM_SEA_TO_USER is +enabled, a VM exit is generated if guest causes a synchronous external abort +(SEA) and the host APEI fails to handle the SEA.
+Historically KVM handles SEA by first delegating the SEA to host APEI as there +is high chance that the SEA is caused by consuming uncorrected memory error. +However, not all platforms support SEA handling in APEI, and KVM's fallback +is to inject an asynchronous SError into the guest, which usually panics +guest kernel unpleasantly. As an alternative, userspace can participate into
in
+the SEA handling by enabling KVM_CAP_ARM_SEA_TO_USER at VM creation, after +querying the capability. Once enabled, when KVM has to handle the guest
guest-
+caused SEA, it returns to userspace with KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA, with details +about the SEA available in 'arm_sea'.
+The 'esr' field holds the value of the exception syndrome register (ESR) while +KVM taking the SEA, which tells userspace the character of the current SEA,
KVM takes
+such as its Exception Class, Synchronous Error Type, Fault Specific Code and +so on. For more details on ESR, check the Arm Architecture Registers +documentation.
+The following values are defined for the 'flags' field
Above needs an ending like '.' or ':'. (or maybe "::" depending how it is processed by Sphinx)
- KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA_FLAG_GPA_VALID -- the faulting guest physical address
- is valid and userspace can get its value in the 'gpa' field.
+Note userspace can tell whether the faulting guest virtual address is valid +from the FnV bit in 'esr' field. If FnV bit in 'esr' field is not set, the +'gva' field hols the valid faulting guest virtual address.
holds (or contains)> +
+Userspace needs to take actions to handle guest SEA synchronously, namely in +the same thread that runs KVM_RUN and receives KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA. One of the +encouraged approaches is to utilize the KVM_SET_VCPU_EVENTS to inject the SEA +to the faulting VCPU. This way, the guest has the opportunity to keep running +and limit the blast radius of the SEA to the particular guest application that +caused the SEA. Userspace may also emulate the SEA to VM by itself using the +KVM_SET_ONE_REG API. In this case, it can use the valid values from 'gva' and +'gpa' fields to manipulate VCPU's registers (e.g. FAR_EL1, HPFAR_EL1).
:: /* Fix the size of the union. */ @@ -8689,6 +8738,18 @@ This capability indicate to the userspace whether a PFNMAP memory region can be safely mapped as cacheable. This relies on the presence of force write back (FWB) feature support on the hardware. +7.45 KVM_CAP_ARM_SEA_TO_USER +----------------------------
+:Architecture: arm64 +:Target: VM +:Parameters: none +:Returns: 0 on success, -EINVAL if unsupported.
+This capability, if KVM_CHECK_EXTENSION indicates that it is available, means +that KVM has an implementation that allows userspace to participate in handling +synchronous external abort caused by VM, by an exit of KVM_EXIT_ARM_SEA.
- Other capabilities.
======================