linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/4] keys: Introduce a keys frontend for attestation reports

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Date:   Tue, 8 Aug 2023 11:17:33 -0700
From:   Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
To:     Dionna Amalie Glaze <dionnaglaze@...gle.com>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
CC:     Sathyanarayanan Kuppuswamy 
        <sathyanarayanan.kuppuswamy@...ux.intel.com>,
        James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...senpartnership.com>,
        <dhowells@...hat.com>, Brijesh Singh <brijesh.singh@....com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@....com>,
        "Borislav Petkov" <bp@...en8.de>,
        Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko@...nel.org>,
        Samuel Ortiz <sameo@...osinc.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        "Andrew Morton" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        <linux-coco@...ts.linux.dev>, <keyrings@...r.kernel.org>,
        <x86@...nel.org>, <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] keys: Introduce a keys frontend for attestation
 reports

Dionna Amalie Glaze wrote:
> >
> > I do not see sysfs precluding a use case like that. If the kernel can
> > call out to userspace for TLS connection setup [1], then advanced user
> > can call out to a daemon for workload provenance setup. Recall that TDX
> > will round trip through the quoting enclave for these reports and,
> > without measuring, that seems to have the potential to dominate the
> > setup time vs the communication to ask a daemon to convey a report.
> >
> 
> It's rather hard to get new daemons approved for container
> distributions since they end up as resource hogs.
> I really don't think it's appropriate to delegate to a daemon to
> single-thread use of a kernel interface when the interface could
> provide functional semantics to begin with.

That's fair, it's also not without precedence for the kernel to await a
strong motivation of a use case before taking on a higher maintenance
burden. Unifying kernel interfaces is important for maintainability and
difficult / needs care. sysfs simplifies maintainability (but exports
complexity to userspace), keyring simplifies that (but there is a valid
argument that this is not a key), ioctl complicates that (it is not as
amenable to transport unification as the above options).