linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 4/6] virtio: Initialize authorized attribute for confidential guest

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:   Mon, 4 Oct 2021 14:04:20 -0700
From:   Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
To:     Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>
Cc:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@...hat.com>,
        "Kuppuswamy, Sathyanarayanan" 
        <sathyanarayanan.kuppuswamy@...ux.intel.com>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
        Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@...gle.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Andreas Noever <andreas.noever@...il.com>,
        Michael Jamet <michael.jamet@...el.com>,
        Yehezkel Bernat <YehezkelShB@...il.com>,
        "Rafael J . Wysocki" <rafael@...nel.org>,
        Mika Westerberg <mika.westerberg@...ux.intel.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>,
        Kuppuswamy Sathyanarayanan <knsathya@...nel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux PCI <linux-pci@...r.kernel.org>,
        USB list <linux-usb@...r.kernel.org>,
        virtualization@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
        "Reshetova, Elena" <elena.reshetova@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 4/6] virtio: Initialize authorized attribute for
 confidential guest

On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 7:20 AM Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 10/2/2021 4:14 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 07:04:28AM -0400, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> >> On Fri, Oct 01, 2021 at 08:49:28AM -0700, Andi Kleen wrote:
> >>>>    Do you have a list of specific drivers and kernel options that you
> >>>> feel you now "trust"?
> >>> For TDX it's currently only virtio net/block/console
> >>>
> >>> But we expect this list to grow slightly over time, but not at a high rate
> >>> (so hopefully <10)
> >> Well there are already >10 virtio drivers and I think it's reasonable
> >> that all of these will be used with encrypted guests. The list will
> >> grow.
> > What is keeping "all" drivers from being on this list?
>
> It would be too much work to harden them all, and it would be pointless
> because all these drivers are never legitimately needed in a virtualized
> environment which only virtualize a very small number of devices.
>
> >   How exactly are
> > you determining what should, and should not, be allowed?
>
> Everything that has had reasonable effort at hardening can be added. But
> if someone proposes to add a driver that should trigger additional
> scrutiny in code review. We should also request them to do some fuzzing.
>
> It's a bit similar to someone trying to add a new syscall interface.
> That also triggers much additional scrutiny for good reasons and people
> start fuzzing it.
>
>
> >    How can
> > drivers move on, or off, of it over time?
>
> Adding something is submitting a patch to the allow list.
>
> I'm not sure the "off" case would happen, unless the driver is
> completely removed, or maybe it has some unfixable security problem. But
> that is all rather unlikely.
>
>
> >
> > And why not just put all of that into userspace and have it pick and
> > choose?  That should be the end-goal here, you don't want to encode
> > policy like this in the kernel, right?
>
> How would user space know what drivers have been hardened? This is
> really something that the kernel needs to determine. I don't think we
> can outsource it to anyone else.

How it is outsourcing by moving that same allow list over the kernel /
user boundary. It can be maintained by the same engineers and get
deployed by something like:

dracut --authorize-device-list=confidential-computing-default $kernel-version

With that distributions can deploy kernel-specific authorizations and
admins can deploy site-specific authorizations. Then the kernel
implementation is minimized to authorize just enough drivers by
default to let userspace take over the policy.

> Also BTW of course user space can still override it, but really the
> defaults should be a kernel policy.

The default is secure, trust nothing but bootstrap devices.

> There's also the additional problem that one of the goals of
> confidential guest is to just move existing guest virtual images into
> them without much changes. So it's better for such a case if as much as
> possible of the policy is in the kernel. But that's more a secondary
> consideration, the first point is really the important part.

The same image can be used on host and guest in this "do it in
userspace" proposal.