Date:   Tue, 19 Jan 2021 17:30:21 +0530
From:   Sai Prakash Ranjan <saiprakash.ranjan@...eaurora.org>
To:     Suzuki K Poulose <suzuki.poulose@....com>
Cc:     Al Grant <Al.Grant@....com>,
        Mathieu Poirier <mathieu.poirier@...aro.org>,
        Mike Leach <mike.leach@...aro.org>, coresight@...ts.linaro.org,
        Stephen Boyd <swboyd@...omium.org>,
        Denis Nikitin <denik@...omium.org>,
        linux-arm-msm@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, leo.yan@...aro.org,
        mnissler@...gle.com, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] coresight: etm4x: Add config to exclude kernel mode
 tracing

Hi Suzuki,

On 2021-01-19 16:03, Suzuki K Poulose wrote:
> On 1/19/21 9:51 AM, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>> Hi Al,
>> 
>> On 2021-01-19 14:06, Al Grant wrote:
>>> Hi Sai,
>>> 
>>>> From: saiprakash.ranjan=codeaurora.org@...codeaurora.org
>>>> Hi Mathieu,
>>>> 
>>>> On 2021-01-19 01:53, Mathieu Poirier wrote:
>>>> > On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 11:16:24AM +0530, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>> >> Hello Mathieu, Suzuki
>>>> >>
>>>> >> On 2020-10-15 21:32, Mathieu Poirier wrote:
>>>> >> > On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 06:15:22PM +0530, Sai Prakash Ranjan wrote:
>>>> >> > > On production systems with ETMs enabled, it is preferred to
>>>> >> > > exclude kernel mode(NS EL1) tracing for security concerns and
>>>> >> > > support only userspace(NS EL0) tracing. So provide an option via
>>>> >> > > kconfig to exclude kernel mode tracing if it is required.
>>>> >> > > This config is disabled by default and would not affect the
>>>> >> > > current configuration which has both kernel and userspace tracing
>>>> >> > > enabled by default.
>>>> >> > >
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> > One requires root access (or be part of a special trace group) to
>>>> >> > be able to use the cs_etm PMU.  With this kind of elevated access
>>>> >> > restricting tracing at EL1 provides little in terms of security.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Apart from the VM usecase discussed, I am told there are other
>>>> >> security concerns here regarding need to exclude kernel mode tracing
>>>> >> even for the privileged users/root. One such case being the ability
>>>> >> to analyze cryptographic code execution since ETMs can record all
>>>> >> branch instructions including timestamps in the kernel and there may
>>>> >> be other cases as well which I may not be aware of and hence have
>>>> >> added Denis and Mattias. Please let us know if you have any questions
>>>> >> further regarding this not being a security concern.
>>>> >
>>>> > Even if we were to apply this patch there are many ways to compromise
>>>> > a system or get the kernel to reveal important information using the
>>>> > perf subsystem.  I would perfer to tackle the problem at that level
>>>> > rather than concentrating on coresight.
>>>> >
>>>> 
>>>> Sorry but I did not understand your point. We are talking about the 
>>>> capabilities
>>>> of coresight etm tracing which has the instruction level tracing and 
>>>> a lot more.
>>>> Perf subsystem is just the framework used for it.
>>>> In other words, its not the perf subsystem which does instruction 
>>>> level tracing,
>>>> its the coresight etm. Why the perf subsystem should be modified to 
>>>> lockdown
>>>> kernel mode? If we were to let perf handle all the trace filtering 
>>>> for different
>>>> exception levels, then why do we need the register settings in 
>>>> coresight etm
>>>> driver to filter out NS EL* tracing? And more importantly, how do 
>>>> you suppose
>>>> we handle sysfs mode of coresight tracing with perf subsystem?
>>> 
>>> You both have good points. Mathieu is right that this is not a 
>>> CoreSight
>>> issue specifically, it is a matter of kernel security policy, and 
>>> other hardware
>>> tracing mechanisms ought to be within its scope. There should be a 
>>> general
>>> "anti kernel exfiltration" config that applies to all mechanisms 
>>> within
>>> its scope, and we'd definitely expect that to include Intel PT as 
>>> well as ETM.
>>> 
>> 
>> I agree with this part where there should be a generic config for all
>> hardware tracing families(atleast for Intel PT and ARM Coresight),
>> Suzuki suggested that as well. I am under the impression that Mathieu
>> didn't like adding such a config and wanted perf subsystem to handle
>> it since initial discussion was around whether root compromise meant
>> everything is lost already and such a kconfig would not help, but
>> Mattias already gave some good examples where that is not true.
>> 
>>> A kernel config that forced exclude_kernel on all perf events would 
>>> deal with
>>> ETM and PT in one place, but miss the sysfs interface to ETM.
>>> 
>>> On the other hand, doing it in the ETM drivers would cover the perf 
>>> and sysfs
>>> interfaces to ETM, but would miss Intel PT.
>>> 
>>> So I think what is needed is a general config option that is both 
>>> implemented
>>> in perf (excluding all kernel tracing events) and by any drivers that 
>>> provide
>>> an alternative interface to hardware tracing events.
>>> 
>> 
>> I am good with this approach, once Mathieu confirms, I can add a 
>> kernel
>> wide kconfig as Suzuki suggested earlier and make ETM{3,4}x as the
>> initial users. Someone more familiar with Intel PTs can then make use
>> of this kconfig.
> 
> Instead of adding the support for individual drivers, you could handle 
> this
> in the generic perf layer. e.g, Fail perf_event create with an 
> attribute
> which allows kernel tracing ?
> 
> if (!attr.exclude_kernel)
> 	return -EINVAL;
> 
> Or even exclude the kernel silently always.
> 
> This could also be limited to PMUs with PERF_PMU_CAP_ITRACE, if you
> want to limit this to PMUs that instruction level tracing.
> 

Ah nice, wasn't aware of such a flag for instruction level tracing.
This sounds really good to me, I will use this in generic perf layer
and will have a config EXCLUDE_KERNEL_HW_ITRACE as you suggested
earlier.

Thanks,
Sai

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