On x86_64 Xen Implementation

On x86_64 Xen Implementation

[BVK Chaitanya]

Hi,

Xen 3.0 inteface manual says:

On 64-bit systems it is not possible to protect the hypervisor from 
untrusted guest code running in rings 1 and 2. Guests are therefore 
restricted to run in ring 3 only. The guest kernel is protected from its 
applications by context switching between the kernel and currently 
running application.

Can anybody explain (or provide me pointers) to what x86_64 features 
make protecting hypervisor from untrusted guest (kernels) impossible? 
Is x86_64 (by-design) makes x86's 4 rings feature obsolete?


thanks,
--
bvk-chaitanya

Re: On x86_64 Xen Implementation

[Andre Przywara]

BVK Chaitanya wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Xen 3.0 inteface manual says:
> 
> On 64-bit systems it is not possible to protect the hypervisor from 
> untrusted guest code running in rings 1 and 2. Guests are therefore 
> restricted to run in ring 3 only. The guest kernel is protected from its 
> applications by context switching between the kernel and currently 
> running application.
> 
> Can anybody explain (or provide me pointers) to what x86_64 features 
> make protecting hypervisor from untrusted guest (kernels) impossible? Is 
> x86_64 (by-design) makes x86's 4 rings feature obsolete?

Somewhat. Segmentation support has been mostly dropped in x86_64 long 
mode (aka 64bit mode). By using paging you can only differentiate 
between supervisor and user mode. Separating the different rings 
requires different segment descriptors, which can hold a ring number. 
Since segmentation limits, offsets and protection flags are (mostly) 
ignored in 64bit long mode, you actually cannot use the four rings here.

Regards,
Andre.

-- 
Andre Przywara
AMD-Operating System Research Center (OSRC), Dresden, Germany
Tel: +49 351 277-84917
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