Re: [PATCH v4 1/1] tpm: add sysfs exports for all banks of PCR registers

[Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 02:26:04PM -0400, Mimi Zohar wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-08-18 at 13:46 -0300, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 07:26:30PM +0300, Jarkko Sakkinen wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 07:19:57PM +0300, Jarkko Sakkinen wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 07:12:09PM +0300, Jarkko Sakkinen wrote:
> > > > > On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 02:35:06PM -0700, James Bottomley wrote:
> > > > > > Create sysfs per hash groups with 24 PCR files in them one group,
> > > > > > named pcr-<hash>, for each agile hash of the TPM.  The files are
> > > > > > plugged in to a PCR read function which is TPM version agnostic, so
> > > > > > this works also for TPM 1.2 but the hash is only sha1 in that case.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Note: the macros used to create the hashes emit spurious checkpatch
> > > > > > warnings.  Do not try to "fix" them as checkpatch recommends, otherwise
> > > > > > they'll break.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Signed-off-by: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>
> > > > > > Reviewed-by: Jerry Snitselaar <jsnitsel@redhat.com>
> > > > > > Tested-by: Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.ibm.com>
> > > > > 
> > > > > I have hard time understanding why this is required.
> > > > > 
> > > > > You can grab the information through /dev/tpm0 just fine.
> > > > 
> > > > I just think it is principally wrong to add sysfs files if they don't
> > > > have any measurable value other than perhaps some convenience.
> > > > 
> > > > It is trival to write only a libc dependent program that outputs PCRs.
> > > > 
> > > > I think this is essentially an user space problem that is getting sorted
> > > > out with kernel code.
> > > 
> > > Jason, what do you make of this? I recall that it was you who I
> > > discussed with about this topic when TPM 2.0 support was first
> > > upstreamed.
> > 
> > TPM 2.0 broke all the userspace so it made sense to get rid of the
> > non-conforming sysfs files from TPM v1.x time as part of the userspace
> > API. That was the main reason to not continue forward with PCR in
> > userspace.
> > 
> > As far as doing it properly as this patch does.. I agree with you that
> > sysfs files should have some reason to be added, espcially if it
> > causes quite big code cost as this does. eg to drive a udev rule
> > decision.
> > 
> > Why is PCRs so special it needs to be in sysfs? What is userspace
> > going to do with this information?
> 
> The original IMA LTP "boot_aggregate" regression test is dependent on
> the exported TPM event log and PCRs.  Similar support is needed for TPM
> 2.0.  There isn't just a single userspace application for reading
> PCRs.  As soon as we add support for one userspace
> application,  support for the other applications is requested.  So
> instead of a having a simple regression test with a single method of
> reading PCRs, we're now required to support multiple userspace
> applications.

But this test already has a C program as part of the boot aggregate
test, why is it such a problem to use a C program to also read the
PCRs?

As Jarkko says it is not so hard

Jason