Behavioral implementation of a double fault stack in a computer system

An example method of exception handling in a computer system is described. The computer system includes a physical central processing unit (PCPU) and a system memory, the system memory storing a first stack, a second stack, and a double fault stack associated with the PCPU. The method includes: storing, by an exception handler executing in the computer system, an exception frame on the double fault stack in response to a stack overflow condition of the first stack; switching, by the exception handler, a first stack pointer of the PCPU from pointing to the first stack to pointing to the double fault stack; setting a current stack pointer of the PCPU to the first stack pointer; and executing software on the PCPU with the current stack pointer pointing to the double fault stack.