1- Secure Memory Encryption (SME) is a feature found on AMD processors.
1+ Secure Memory Encryption (SME) and Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) are
2+ features found on AMD processors.
23
34SME provides the ability to mark individual pages of memory as encrypted using
45the standard x86 page tables. A page that is marked encrypted will be
56automatically decrypted when read from DRAM and encrypted when written to
67DRAM. SME can therefore be used to protect the contents of DRAM from physical
78attacks on the system.
89
10+ SEV enables running encrypted virtual machines (VMs) in which the code and data
11+ of the guest VM are secured so that a decrypted version is available only
12+ within the VM itself. SEV guest VMs have the concept of private and shared
13+ memory. Private memory is encrypted with the guest-specific key, while shared
14+ memory may be encrypted with hypervisor key. When SME is enabled, the hypervisor
15+ key is the same key which is used in SME.
16+
917A page is encrypted when a page table entry has the encryption bit set (see
1018below on how to determine its position). The encryption bit can also be
1119specified in the cr3 register, allowing the PGD table to be encrypted. Each
1220successive level of page tables can also be encrypted by setting the encryption
1321bit in the page table entry that points to the next table. This allows the full
1422page table hierarchy to be encrypted. Note, this means that just because the
15- encryption bit is set in cr3, doesn't imply the full hierarchy is encyrpted .
23+ encryption bit is set in cr3, doesn't imply the full hierarchy is encrypted .
1624Each page table entry in the hierarchy needs to have the encryption bit set to
1725achieve that. So, theoretically, you could have the encryption bit set in cr3
1826so that the PGD is encrypted, but not set the encryption bit in the PGD entry
1927for a PUD which results in the PUD pointed to by that entry to not be
2028encrypted.
2129
22- Support for SME can be determined through the CPUID instruction. The CPUID
23- function 0x8000001f reports information related to SME:
30+ When SEV is enabled, instruction pages and guest page tables are always treated
31+ as private. All the DMA operations inside the guest must be performed on shared
32+ memory. Since the memory encryption bit is controlled by the guest OS when it
33+ is operating in 64-bit or 32-bit PAE mode, in all other modes the SEV hardware
34+ forces the memory encryption bit to 1.
35+
36+ Support for SME and SEV can be determined through the CPUID instruction. The
37+ CPUID function 0x8000001f reports information related to SME:
2438
2539 0x8000001f[eax]:
2640 Bit[0] indicates support for SME
41+ Bit[1] indicates support for SEV
2742 0x8000001f[ebx]:
2843 Bits[5:0] pagetable bit number used to activate memory
2944 encryption
@@ -39,6 +54,13 @@ determine if SME is enabled and/or to enable memory encryption:
3954 Bit[23] 0 = memory encryption features are disabled
4055 1 = memory encryption features are enabled
4156
57+ If SEV is supported, MSR 0xc0010131 (MSR_AMD64_SEV) can be used to determine if
58+ SEV is active:
59+
60+ 0xc0010131:
61+ Bit[0] 0 = memory encryption is not active
62+ 1 = memory encryption is active
63+
4264Linux relies on BIOS to set this bit if BIOS has determined that the reduction
4365in the physical address space as a result of enabling memory encryption (see
4466CPUID information above) will not conflict with the address space resource
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