Re: [PATCH v3 1/1] virtio: fix feature negotiation for ACCESS_PLATFORM

[Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>]

On Mon, Mar 07 2022, Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com> wrote:

> Unlike most virtio features ACCESS_PLATFORM is considered mandatory by
> QEMU, i.e. the driver must accept it if offered by the device. The
> virtio specification says that the driver SHOULD accept the
> ACCESS_PLATFORM feature if offered, and that the device MAY fail to
> operate if ACCESS_PLATFORM was offered but not negotiated.
>
> While a SHOULD ain't exactly a MUST, we are certainly allowed to fail
> the device when the driver fences ACCESS_PLATFORM. With commit
> 2943b53f68 ("virtio: force VIRTIO_F_IOMMU_PLATFORM") we already made the
> decision to do so whenever the get_dma_as() callback is implemented (by
> the bus), which in practice means for the entirety of virtio-pci.
>
> That means, if the device needs to translate I/O addresses, then
> ACCESS_PLATFORM is mandatory. The aforementioned commit tells us in the
> commit message that this is for security reasons. More precisely if we
> were to allow a less then trusted driver (e.g. an user-space driver, or
> a nested guest) to make the device bypass the IOMMU by not negotiating
> ACCESS_PLATFORM, then the guest kernel would have no ability to
> control/police (by programming the IOMMU) what pieces of guest memory
> the driver may manipulate using the device. Which would break security
> assumptions within the guest.
>
> If ACCESS_PLATFORM is offered not because we want the device to utilize
> an IOMMU and do address translation, but because the device does not
> have access to the entire guest RAM, and needs the driver to grant
> access to the bits it needs access to (e.g. confidential guest support),
> we still require the guest to have the corresponding logic and to accept
> ACCESS_PLATFORM. If the driver does not accept ACCESS_PLATFORM, then
> things are bound to go wrong, and we may see failures much less graceful
> than failing the device because the driver didn't negotiate
> ACCESS_PLATFORM.
>
> So let us make ACCESS_PLATFORM mandatory for the driver regardless
> of whether the get_dma_as() callback is implemented or not.
>
> Signed-off-by: Halil Pasic <pasic@linux.ibm.com>
> Fixes: 2943b53f68 ("virtio: force VIRTIO_F_IOMMU_PLATFORM")
>
> ---
> v2 -> v3:
> * Rebased onto the next branch of the git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/mst/qemu.git
>   repository
> v1 -> v2:
> * Change comment: reflect that this is not about the verify
>   but also about the device features as seen by the driver (Connie)
> RFC -> v1:
> * Tweaked the commit message and fixed typos (Connie)
> * Added two sentences discussing the security implications (Michael)
>
> This patch is based on:
> https://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg866199.html
>
> During the review of "virtio: fix the condition for iommu_platform not
> supported" Daniel raised the question why do we "force IOMMU_PLATFORM"
> iff has_iommu && !!klass->get_dma_as. My answer to that was, that
> this logic ain't right.
>
> While at it I used the opportunity to re-organize the code a little
> and provide an explanatory comment.
> ---
>  hw/virtio/virtio-bus.c | 22 ++++++++++++++--------
>  1 file changed, 14 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

Reviewed-by: Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>