Sounds good, I'll look into that as a follow up.

Br,
Dorinda.

On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 4:25 PM Albert Esteve <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 3:49 PM Dorinda Bassey <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Commit the memory region transaction before sending the SHMEM_MAP reply
> > so the KVM memory slot exists before the guest can access the mapped
> > region.
> >
> > This moves the commit to while the backend is still blocked waiting for
> > the reply, which can trigger ADD_MEM_REG back to the backend and
> > deadlock. Filter shmem mapping regions out of vhost_section() by
> > checking the MR owner type to prevent this.
> >
> > The explicit transaction begin/commit wrapping is dropped since
> > virtio_add_shmem_map() already commits via memory_region_add_subregion().
> > The unmap handler keeps the original ordering: reply before delete, so
> > the backend is unblocked before the transaction commit.
> >
> > Fixes: b52e1896e764 ("vhost-user: Add VirtIO Shared Memory map request")
> > Suggested-by: Albert Esteve <[email protected]>
> > Reviewed-by: Albert Esteve <[email protected]>
> > Tested-by: Albert Esteve <[email protected]>
> > Signed-off-by: Dorinda Bassey <[email protected]>
> > ---
> >  hw/virtio/vhost-user.c | 20 ++------------------
> >  hw/virtio/vhost.c      | 10 ++++++++++
> >  2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c b/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c
> > index 517cc4ca716..01468f7441a 100644
> > --- a/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c
> > +++ b/hw/virtio/vhost-user.c
> > @@ -1977,8 +1977,6 @@ vhost_user_backend_handle_shmem_map(struct
> vhost_dev *dev,
> >          }
> >      }
> >
> > -    memory_region_transaction_begin();
> > -
> >      /* Create VirtioSharedMemoryMapping object */
> >      VirtioSharedMemoryMapping *mapping =
> virtio_shared_memory_mapping_new(
> >          vu_mmap->shmid, fd, vu_mmap->fd_offset, vu_mmap->shm_offset,
> > @@ -1986,7 +1984,7 @@ vhost_user_backend_handle_shmem_map(struct
> vhost_dev *dev,
> >
> >      if (!mapping) {
> >          ret = -EFAULT;
> > -        goto send_reply_commit;
> > +        goto send_reply;
> >      }
> >
> >      /* Add the mapping to the shared memory region */
> > @@ -1994,22 +1992,8 @@ vhost_user_backend_handle_shmem_map(struct
> vhost_dev *dev,
> >          error_report("Failed to add shared memory mapping");
> >          object_unref(OBJECT(mapping));
> >          ret = -EFAULT;
> > -        goto send_reply_commit;
> > -    }
> > -
> > -send_reply_commit:
> > -    /* Send reply and commit after transaction started */
> > -    if (hdr->flags & VHOST_USER_NEED_REPLY_MASK) {
> > -        payload->u64 = !!ret;
> > -        hdr->size = sizeof(payload->u64);
> > -        if (!vhost_user_send_resp(ioc, hdr, payload, &local_err)) {
> > -            error_report_err(local_err);
> > -            memory_region_transaction_commit();
> > -            return -EFAULT;
> > -        }
> > +        goto send_reply;
> >      }
> > -    memory_region_transaction_commit();
> > -    return 0;
> >
> >  send_reply:
>
> Minor idea for follow-up, not a blocker: with nothing left to do after
> the reply, we could drop reply_ack = false and the handler’s
> send_reply block, and rely on backend_read()’s default reply handling.
>
> >      if (hdr->flags & VHOST_USER_NEED_REPLY_MASK) {
> > diff --git a/hw/virtio/vhost.c b/hw/virtio/vhost.c
> > index af41841b529..e5c219be095 100644
> > --- a/hw/virtio/vhost.c
> > +++ b/hw/virtio/vhost.c
> > @@ -636,6 +636,16 @@ static bool vhost_section(struct vhost_dev *dev,
> MemoryRegionSection *section)
> >  {
> >      MemoryRegion *mr = section->mr;
> >
> > +    /*
> > +     * Skip shmem mapping regions, they are managed via SHMEM_MAP/UNMAP.
> > +     * Including them triggers ADD_MEM_REG during the SHMEM_MAP
> transaction
> > +     * commit, deadlocking the backend.
> > +     */
> > +    if (object_dynamic_cast(memory_region_owner(mr),
> > +                            TYPE_VIRTIO_SHARED_MEMORY_MAPPING)) {
> > +        return false;
> > +    }
> > +
> >      if (memory_region_is_ram(mr) && !memory_region_is_rom(mr)) {
> >          uint8_t dirty_mask = memory_region_get_dirty_log_mask(mr);
> >          uint8_t handled_dirty;
> > --
> > 2.52.0
> >
>
>

Reply via email to