[PATCH v11 10/11] Documentation/x86: Add documentation for TDX's Dynamic PAMT
From: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Date: 2026-09-04 22:00:03
Also in:
kvm, linux-doc, lkml
Subsystem:
documentation, the rest, x86 architecture (32-bit and 64-bit) · Maintainers:
Jonathan Corbet, Linus Torvalds, Thomas Gleixner, Ingo Molnar, Borislav Petkov, Dave Hansen
Expand TDX documentation to include information on the Dynamic PAMT feature. The new section explains PAMT support in the TDX module and how Dynamic PAMT affects the kernel memory use. Some of the docs verbiage was provided by Dave Hansen (see link). AI was used under supervision to review the docs. Based on a patch originally by Kiryl Shutsemau. Signed-off-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com> Tested-by: Hongyu Ning <redacted> Reviewed-by: Binbin Wu <redacted> Reviewed-by: Tony Lindgren <redacted> Acked-by: Sohil Mehta <redacted> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/8e40862e-891a-4cad-8bb8-06ad25ad6061@intel.com/ (local) --- v11: - Drop docs about kernel arg since arg itself was removed. (Dave) v10: - Updated verbiage from Dave, but unify 4k to 4KB to be consistent with the rest of the series. v7: - Spell out PAMT acronym (Binbin) - Drop Assisted-by tag and cover AI use in log (Dave) - Add info about kernel parameter --- Documentation/arch/x86/tdx.rst | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/arch/x86/tdx.rst b/Documentation/arch/x86/tdx.rst
index 3303499ad4c6f..a36ea2bd4301d 100644
--- a/Documentation/arch/x86/tdx.rst
+++ b/Documentation/arch/x86/tdx.rst@@ -200,6 +200,27 @@ reflects the TCB of the currently running TDX module and therefore changes after an update. By contrast, TEE_TCB_SVN reflects the TCB at TD launch time and is not affected. +Dynamic PAMT +------------ + +The Physical Address Metadata Table (PAMT) is metadata in which the TDX +module keeps data about each physical page (think struct page). Space +for it is allocated by the VMM, consumes up to about 0.4% of system +memory and needs to be supplied to the TDX module when the TDX module is +first loaded. + +Dynamic PAMT is an add-on feature that allows a VMM to dynamically +allocate the part of the PAMT which tracks 4KB pages. This reduces the +amount of memory that TDX consumes while TDs are not in use. + +When Dynamic PAMT is in use, dmesg shows it like:: + + [..] virt/tdx: Enable Dynamic PAMT + [..] virt/tdx: 10092 KB allocated for PAMT + [..] virt/tdx: TDX-Module initialized + +Dynamic PAMT is enabled automatically if supported. + TDX Interaction to Other Kernel Components ------------------------------------------
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2.55.0