linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] KVM: VMX: expose the host's ARCH

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Wed, 7 Mar 2018 16:10:11 +0100
From:   Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>
To:     Radim Krčmář <rkrcmar@...hat.com>
Cc:     Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@...cle.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
        David Woodhouse <dwmw@...zon.co.uk>,
        KarimAllah Ahmed <karahmed@...zon.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] KVM: VMX: expose the host's ARCH_CAPABILITIES MSR to
 userspace

On 07/03/2018 15:56, Radim Krčmář wrote:
> The MSR_F10H_DECFG default is questionable -- MSR_F10H_DECFG is an
> architectural MSR, so we'd be changing the guest under the sight of
> existing userspaces.
> A potential security risk if they migrate the guest to a CPU that
> doesn't serialize LFENCE.  ARCH_CAPABILITIES are at least hidden by a
> new CPUID bit.

Good point.  Perhaps we should add a KVM-specific CPUID bit for
serializing LFENCE.

> The feature MSR defaults are going to be a mess anyway: we have
> MSR_IA32_UCODE_REV that is tightly coupled with CPUID.  Not a good
> candidate for passing by default and currently also has a default value.

Yeah, ucode revision is out of question.

Paolo