if (alignment > 1)
                region->mmap_size += alignment;
 
+       region->fd = -1;
+       if (src_type == VM_MEM_SRC_SHMEM) {
+               region->fd = memfd_create("kvm_selftest", MFD_CLOEXEC);
+               TEST_ASSERT(region->fd != -1,
+                           "memfd_create failed, errno: %i", errno);
+
+               ret = ftruncate(region->fd, region->mmap_size);
+               TEST_ASSERT(ret == 0, "ftruncate failed, errno: %i", errno);
+
+               ret = fallocate(region->fd,
+                               FALLOC_FL_PUNCH_HOLE | FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE, 0,
+                               region->mmap_size);
+               TEST_ASSERT(ret == 0, "fallocate failed, errno: %i", errno);
+       }
+
        region->mmap_start = mmap(NULL, region->mmap_size,
                                  PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
                                  vm_mem_backing_src_alias(src_type)->flag,
-                                 -1, 0);
+                                 region->fd, 0);
        TEST_ASSERT(region->mmap_start != MAP_FAILED,
                    "test_malloc failed, mmap_start: %p errno: %i",
                    region->mmap_start, errno);
 
                        .name = "anonymous_hugetlb_16gb",
                        .flag = anon_huge_flags | MAP_HUGE_16GB,
                },
+               [VM_MEM_SRC_SHMEM] = {
+                       .name = "shmem",
+                       .flag = MAP_SHARED,
+               },
        };
        _Static_assert(ARRAY_SIZE(aliases) == NUM_SRC_TYPES,
                       "Missing new backing src types?");
 
        switch (i) {
        case VM_MEM_SRC_ANONYMOUS:
+       case VM_MEM_SRC_SHMEM:
                return getpagesize();
        case VM_MEM_SRC_ANONYMOUS_THP:
                return get_trans_hugepagesz();