# How to properly enable IOMMU on Linux?

**URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/how-to-properly-enable-iommu-on-linux/26499
**Category:** Questions
**Created:** 2025-04-07T14:29:38Z
**Posts:** 8
**Showing post:** 2 of 8

## Post 2 by @Cyber-Typhoon — 2025-04-07T22:28:38Z

I’m no expert but I put a Proxmox running a Debian server in the past with a few LVMs and played with those settings in the Intel NUC. I still have the server up but I don’t mess with those settings anymore. Things are very stable.

> [@trexyfes](#):
>
> but I’m not sure if that’s the AMD equivalent of `intel_iommu=on`

Yes, it is.

> [@trexyfes](#):
>
> But the argument `amd_iommu=force_isolation` is in the list of “Unstable kargs” that “may cause issues on some hardware”. What kind of issues could arise when enabled?

A few, but it doesn’t mean they will happen. The most notable that I can think are virtualization problems. If you use virtualization technologies (like KVM or Xen), forcing strict isolation might interfere with how virtual machines access hardware. However, I’d try enabling before ruling it out.

> [@trexyfes](#):
>
> Should I want to enable it on AMD hardware?

Yeah, might be helpful.

> [@trexyfes](#):
>
> So do I actually need both?

Yes.

> [@trexyfes](#):
>
> I also see `iommu.passthrough=0`, `iommu.strict=1` and `efi=disable_early_pci_dma` but I don’t understand what they do and whether I should want them.

Generally is better to research before playing with things that you are not familiar. I don’t recall for sure if the content creator here explain those items but may be helpful to watch [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZaMgEgrHw&t=378s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZaMgEgrHw&t=378s)

> [@trexyfes](#):
>
> Can I simply set `iommu=force` without setting any hardware-specific arguments like `amd_iommu` and `intel_iommu`?

If your distro is recommending it may be better to contact them to ask. I think @RoyalOughtness still around and responding sometimes some questions but if I’m not mistaken was agreed that they wouldn’t be interacting in this forum responding questions and the recommended channel is their Discord.

Edit: Just noticed that you are actually using Kinoite and you didn’t rebase to SecureBlue so I’d look Kinoite documentation and use their channels to get some help.

Hope this helps a little bit.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/how-to-properly-enable-iommu-on-linux/26499)._