linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH v5 00/45] TDX: Dynamic PAMT + S-EPT Hugepage

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Message-ID: <aYNaA7Td23xKHoHK@google.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2026 06:38:59 -0800
From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@...gle.com>
To: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...nel.org>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, 
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>, x86@...nel.org, 
	Kiryl Shutsemau <kas@...nel.org>, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
	linux-coco@...ts.linux.dev, kvm@...r.kernel.org, 
	Kai Huang <kai.huang@...el.com>, Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@...el.com>, 
	Yan Zhao <yan.y.zhao@...el.com>, Vishal Annapurve <vannapurve@...gle.com>, 
	Ackerley Tng <ackerleytng@...gle.com>, Sagi Shahar <sagis@...gle.com>, 
	Binbin Wu <binbin.wu@...ux.intel.com>, Xiaoyao Li <xiaoyao.li@...el.com>, 
	Isaku Yamahata <isaku.yamahata@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v5 00/45] TDX: Dynamic PAMT + S-EPT Hugepage

On Thu, Jan 29, 2026, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 05:14:32PM -0800, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > This is a combined series of Dynamic PAMT (from Rick), and S-EPT hugepage
> > support (from Yan).  Except for some last minute tweaks to the DPAMT array
> > args stuff, a version of this based on a Google-internal kernel has been
> > moderately well tested (thanks Vishal!).  But overall it's still firmly RFC
> > as I have deliberately NOT addressed others feedback from v4 of DPAMT and v3
> 
> What does PAMT stand for? Is there a design document somewhere?
> 
> > of S-EPT hugepage (mostly lack of cycles), and there's at least one patch in
> > here that shouldn't be merged as-is (the quick-and-dirty switch from struct
> > page to raw pfns).
> > 
> > My immediate goal is to solidify the designs for DPAMT and S-EPT hugepage.
> > Given the substantial design changes I am proposing, posting an end-to-end
> > RFC seemed like a much better method than trying to communicate my thoughts
> > piecemeal.
> > 
> > As for landing these series, I think the fastest overall approach would be
> > to land patches 1-4 asap (tangentially related cleanups and fixes), agree
> 
> Should they be split out as non-RFC then?

Yeah, I'll do that soonish.  I posted the kitchen sink so that people could
review the entire thing without having to chase down 4+ series/patches.

> > on a design (hopefully), and then hand control back to Rick and Yan to polish
> > their respective series for merge.
> > 
> > I also want to land the VMXON series[*] before DPAMT, because there's a nasty
> > wart where KVM wires up a DPAMT-specific hook even if DPAMT is disabled,
> > because KVM's ordering needs to set the vendor hooks before tdx_sysinfo is
> > ready.  Decoupling VMXON from KVM solves that problem, because it lets the
> > TDX subsystem parse sysinfo before TDX is loaded.
> > 
> > Beyond that dependency, I am comfortable landing both DPAMT and S-EPT hugepage
> > support without any other prereqs, i.e. without an in-tree way to light up
> > the S-EPT hugepage code due to lack of hugepage support in guest_memfd.
> 
> Can there be test-cases? Or simple code posted for QEMU which is the
> tool that 99% of kernel engineers use?

No?  The core limitation is that KVM doesn't yet support hugepages for private
memory.  No amount userspace code can overcome that limitation.

We can and do have tests and VMM support, but it's all out-of-tree (for now).
All I'm saying here is that I'm ok landing the S-EPT hugepage code in advance of
guest_memfd hugepage support, e.g. so that we don't end up in a stalemate due to
cyclical dependecies, or one big megaseries.