linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/2] [RFC] arm64: Add dependencies to vendor-specific errata

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Date:   Thu, 16 Apr 2020 16:56:56 +0100
From:   Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>
To:     Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>
Cc:     Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
        Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        linux-arm-msm <linux-arm-msm@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andy Gross <agross@...nel.org>, Wei Xu <xuwei5@...ilicon.com>,
        Bjorn Andersson <bjorn.andersson@...aro.org>,
        Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@...ionext.com>,
        Robert Richter <rrichter@...vell.com>,
        Linux ARM <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] [RFC] arm64: Add dependencies to vendor-specific
 errata

On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 05:38:07PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 2:56 PM Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 01:56:58PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > > Currently the user is asked about enabling support for each and every
> > > vendor-specific erratum, even when support for the specific platform is
> > > not enabled.
> > >
> > > Fix this by adding platform dependencies to the config options
> > > controlling support for vendor-specific errata.

> > I'm not su1re that it makes sense to do this in general, becaose the
> > ARCH_* platform symbols are about plactform/SoC support (e.g. pinctrl
> > drivers), and these are (mostly) CPU-local and/or VM-visible.
> >
> > I think that it makes sense for those to be independent because:
 
> > * It prevents building a minimal VM image with all (non-virtualized)
> >   platform support disabled, but all possible (VM-visible) errata
> >   options enabled. I do that occassionally for testing/analysis, and I
> >   can imagine this is useful for those building images that are only
> >   intended to be used in VMs.
> 
> Oh, you also want to build a "generic" guest kernel, with all ARCH_*
> symbols disabled. 

Yup! As above I do this today for building test kernels I run on a
number of different hosts, and I'm aware of other use-cases (e.g. WSL2
or docker for mac) where you may want to do this to minimize the core
kernel either for size or security reasons.

> Let's hope a maleficent user cannot disable errata mitigations in the
> guest kernel and break the host ;-)

Indeed ;)

For cases where a malicious guest could cause harm we've added
workarounds in KVM, so unless we've missed something that shouldn't be
the case.

Otherwise, a guest missing these is just shooting itself in the foot.

> And perhaps you do want to enable some platform-specific drivers for
> VFIO pass-through?  Hence having ARCH_* dependencies on those drivers
> means they cannot be enabled :-( Hmm...

IIRC platform device passthrough requires an corresponding VFIO platform
driver in the host to handle reset and so on, but it does seem a shame
to not allow the user to select a driver if they really want it.

I guess there might be platform-specific PCIe drivers too, which might
work with VFIO regardless.

Thanks,
Mark.