Confidential VM Guest Attestation (AMD SEV-SNP and Intel TDX TSM)
Common guest-side support for confidential virtual machines on AMD SEV-SNP or Intel TDX hardware, exposing attestation reports and measurement registers so a VM can cryptographically prove what it is running to a remote party. It underpins confidential-computing offerings from cloud providers like Google Cloud on current AMD EPYC and Intel server CPUs.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because this is brand-new code (landed in early 2025) providing the shared guest-side plumbing that confidential virtual machines use to fetch and verify hardware attestation reports. The underlying CPUs (AMD EPYC with SEV-SNP and Intel processors with TDX) are actively sold in 2025 and used by major cloud providers like Google Cloud for confidential-VM offerings, so this code is on a growth trajectory rather than a retirement one.
repository signals
sources
- git.zx2c4.com
The directory was created in 2025 as shared guest confidential-computing infrastructure, explicitly as preparation for further TSM guest functionality rather than retirement.
- docs.cloud.google.com
Current cloud documentation describes attestation reports for Confidential VMs using hardware-based TSMs from AMD SEV-SNP and Intel TDX, showing active present-day deployment and user-facing consumption.
- amd.com
AMD states SEV is available on current EPYC 7000/8000/9000 server CPUs and offered by major cloud providers, indicating the underlying confidential-VM hardware ecosystem is still sold and deployed.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection showed this is real kernel module code (configfs-backed tsm_reports plus tsm-mr helper exports), not docs/helpers. Local shell git log showed the directory first landed in March/May 2025 and only has later treewide churn, with no age-based stagnation signal. Web search/open on the git.zx2c4 commit page was used to confirm the 2025 introduction rationale; web-open on Google Cloud attestation docs and AMD confidential-computing docs was used for current deployment evidence. I found no removal discussion in the limited lore/web search window, and the code serves active confidential-VM guest attestation/measurement flows rather than obsolete hardware, so deprecation is not indicated.