diff --git a/src/runtime/pkg/README.md b/src/runtime/pkg/README.md
index b5b0d07d32..72bf3248bb 100644
--- a/src/runtime/pkg/README.md
+++ b/src/runtime/pkg/README.md
@@ -7,4 +7,5 @@ This repository contains a number of packages in addition to the
 |-|-|
 | [`katatestutils`](katatestutils) | Unit test utilities. |
 | [`katautils`](katautils) | Utilities. |
+| [`sev`](sev) | AMD SEV confidential guest utilities. |
 | [`signals`](signals) | Signal handling functions. |
diff --git a/src/runtime/pkg/sev/README.md b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8e864f46fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+# AMD SEV confidential guest utilities
+
+This package provides utilities for launching AMD SEV confidential guests.
+
+## Calculating expected launch digests
+
+The `CalculateLaunchDigest` function can be used to calculate the expected
+SHA-256 of an SEV confidential guest given its firmware, kernel, initrd, and
+kernel command-line.
+
+### Unit test data
+
+The [`testdata`](testdata) directory contains file used for testing
+`CalculateLaunchDigest`.
diff --git a/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev.go b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev.go
index d95d2012b6..0b84abaa97 100644
--- a/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev.go
+++ b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev.go
@@ -152,11 +152,13 @@ func CalculateLaunchDigest(firmwarePath, kernelPath, initrdPath, cmdline string)
 		return res, err
 	}
 
-	ht, err := constructSevHashesTable(kernelPath, initrdPath, cmdline)
-	if err != nil {
-		return res, err
+	if kernelPath != "" {
+		ht, err := constructSevHashesTable(kernelPath, initrdPath, cmdline)
+		if err != nil {
+			return res, err
+		}
+		digest.Write(ht)
 	}
-	digest.Write(ht)
 
 	copy(res[:], digest.Sum(nil))
 	return res, nil
diff --git a/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev_test.go b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d1ffffa7ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/sev_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+// Copyright contributors to AMD SEV/-ES in Go
+//
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+package sev
+
+import (
+	"encoding/hex"
+	"testing"
+)
+
+func TestCalculateLaunchDigestWithoutKernelHashes(t *testing.T) {
+	ld, err := CalculateLaunchDigest("testdata/ovmf_suffix.bin", "", "", "")
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("unexpected err value: %s", err)
+	}
+	hexld := hex.EncodeToString(ld[:])
+	if hexld != "b184e06e012366fd7b33ebfb361a515d05f00d354dca07b36abbc1e1e177ced5" {
+		t.Fatalf("wrong measurement: %s", hexld)
+	}
+}
+
+func TestCalculateLaunchDigestWithKernelHashes(t *testing.T) {
+	ld, err := CalculateLaunchDigest("testdata/ovmf_suffix.bin", "/dev/null", "/dev/null", "")
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatalf("unexpected err value: %s", err)
+	}
+	hexld := hex.EncodeToString(ld[:])
+	if hexld != "d59d7696efd7facfaa653758586e6120c4b6eaec3e327771d278cc6a44786ba5" {
+		t.Fatalf("wrong measurement: %s", hexld)
+	}
+}
diff --git a/src/runtime/pkg/sev/testdata/README.md b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/testdata/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..34554dc8e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/testdata/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+# sev/testdata
+
+The `ovmf_suffix.bin` contains the last 4KB of the `OVMF.fd` binary from edk2's
+`OvmfPkg/AmdSev/AmdSevX64.dsc` build.  To save space, we committed only the
+last 4KB instead of the the full 4MB binary.
+
+The end of the file contains a GUIDed footer table with entries that hold the
+SEV-ES AP reset vector address, which is needed in order to compute VMSAs for
+SEV-ES guests.
diff --git a/src/runtime/pkg/sev/testdata/ovmf_suffix.bin b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/testdata/ovmf_suffix.bin
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..cc6d7ca7f0
Binary files /dev/null and b/src/runtime/pkg/sev/testdata/ovmf_suffix.bin differ