linux-kernel - Re: repeatable boot randomness inside KVM guest

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Message-ID: <CAJcbSZGpqZB2OjqdjoPtoUJrNw9nmms+U=CKvOLLptqjBn=YMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Mon, 16 Apr 2018 16:15:44 +0000
From:   Thomas Garnier <thgarnie@...gle.com>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc:     tytso@....edu, Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@...il.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>
Subject: Re: repeatable boot randomness inside KVM guest

On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 8:54 AM Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 3:44 PM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <tytso@....edu> wrote:
> > +linux-mm@...ck.org
> > kvm@...r.kernel.org, security@...nel.org moved to bcc
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 10:59:21PM +0300, Alexey Dobriyan wrote:
> >> SLAB allocators got CONFIG_SLAB_FREELIST_RANDOM option which randomizes
> >> allocation pattern inside a slab:
> >>
> >>       int cache_random_seq_create(struct kmem_cache *cachep, unsigned
int count, gfp_t gfp)
> >>       {
> >>               ...
> >>               /* Get best entropy at this stage of boot */
> >>               prandom_seed_state(&state, get_random_long());
> >>
> >> Then I printed actual random sequences for each kmem cache.
> >> Turned out they were all the same for most of the caches and
> >> they didn't vary across guest reboots.
> >
> > The problem is at the super-early state of the boot path, kernel code
> > can't allocate memory.  This is something most device drivers kinda
> > assume they can do.  :-)
> >
> > So it means we haven't yet initialized the virtio-rng driver, and it's
> > before interrupts have been enabled, so we can't harvest any entropy
> > from interrupt timing.  So that's why trying to use virtio-rng didn't
> > help.
> >
> >> The only way to get randomness for SLAB is to enable RDRAND inside
guest.
> >>
> >> Is it KVM bug?
> >
> > No, it's not a KVM bug.  The fundamental issue is in how the
> > CONFIG_SLAB_FREELIST_RANDOM is currently implemented.

Entropy at early boot in VM has always been a problem for this feature or
others. Did you look at the impact on other boot security features fetching
random values? Does your VM had RDRAND support (we use get_random_long()
which will fetch from RDRAND to provide as much entropy as possible at this
point)?

> >
> > What needs to happen is freelist should get randomized much later in
> > the boot sequence.  Doing it later will require locking; I don't know
> > enough about the slab/slub code to know whether the slab_mutex would
> > be sufficient, or some other lock might need to be added.

You can't re-randomize pre-allocated pages that's why the cache is
randomized that early. If you don't have RDRAND, we could re-randomize
later at boot with more entropy that could be useful in this specific case.

> >
> > The other thing I would note that is that using prandom_u32_state()
doesn't
> > really provide much security.  In fact, if the the goal is to protect
> > against a malicious attacker trying to guess what addresses will be
> > returned by the slab allocator, I suspect it's much like the security
> > patdowns done at airports.  It might protect against a really stupid
> > attacker, but it's mostly security theater.
> >
> > The freelist randomization is only being done once; so it's not like
> > performance is really an issue.  It would be much better to just use
> > get_random_u32() and be done with it.  I'd drop using prandom_*
> > functions in slab.c and slubct and slab_common.c, and just use a
> > really random number generator, if the goal is real security as
> > opposed to security for show....

The state is seeded with get_random_long() which will use RDRAND and any
available entropy at this point. I am not sure the value of calling
get_random_long() on each iteration especially if you don't have RDRAND.

> >
> > (Not that there's necessarily any thing wrong with security theater;
> > the US spends over 3 billion dollars a year on security theater.  As
> > politicians know, symbolism can be important.  :-)

> I've added Thomas Garnier to CC (since he wrote this originally). He
> can speak to its position in the boot ordering and the effective
> entropy.

Thanks for including me.


> -Kees

> --
> Kees Cook
> Pixel Security



--
Thomas