public inbox for kvm@vger.kernel.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Janosch Frank <frankja@linux.ibm.com>
To: kvm@vger.kernel.org
Cc: linux-s390@vger.kernel.org, imbrenda@linux.ibm.com,
	david@redhat.com, borntraeger@linux.ibm.com
Subject: [PATCH 8/9] Documentation: virt: Protected virtual machine dumps
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2022 09:20:06 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20220223092007.3163-9-frankja@linux.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20220223092007.3163-1-frankja@linux.ibm.com>

Let's add a documentation file which describes the dump process. Since
we only copy the UV dump data from the UV to userspace we'll not go
into detail here and let the party which processes the data describe
its structure.

Signed-off-by: Janosch Frank <frankja@linux.ibm.com>
---
 Documentation/virt/kvm/index.rst        |  1 +
 Documentation/virt/kvm/s390-pv-dump.rst | 60 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 61 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/virt/kvm/s390-pv-dump.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/index.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/index.rst
index b6833c7bb474..32f3eed5fadb 100644
--- a/Documentation/virt/kvm/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/index.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ KVM
    s390-diag
    s390-pv
    s390-pv-boot
+   s390-pv-dump
    timekeeping
    vcpu-requests
 
diff --git a/Documentation/virt/kvm/s390-pv-dump.rst b/Documentation/virt/kvm/s390-pv-dump.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6fe7560e10b1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/virt/kvm/s390-pv-dump.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+===========================================
+s390 (IBM Z) Protected Virtualization dumps
+===========================================
+
+Summary
+-------
+
+Dumping a VM is an essential tool for debugging problems inside
+it. This is especially true when a protected VM runs into trouble as
+there's no way to access its memory and registers from the outside
+while it's running.
+
+However when dumping a protected VM we need to maintain its
+confidentiality until the dump is in the hands of the VM owner who
+should be the only one capable of analysing it.
+
+The confidentiality of the VM dump is ensured by the Ultravisor who
+provides an interface to KVM over which encrypted CPU and memory data
+can be requested. The encryption is based on the Customer
+Communication Key which is the key that's used to encrypt VM data in a
+way that the customer is able to decrypt.
+
+
+Dump process
+------------
+
+A dump is done in 3 steps:
+
+Initiation
+This step initializes the dump process, generates cryptographic seeds
+and extracts dump keys with which the VM dump data will be encrypted.
+
+Data gathering
+Currently there are two types of data that can be gathered from a VM:
+the memory and the vcpu state.
+
+The vcpu state contains all the important registers, general, floating
+point, vector, control and tod/timers of a vcpu. The vcpu dump can
+contain incomplete data if a vcpu is dumped while an instruction is
+emulated with help of the hypervisor. This is indicated by a flag bit
+in the dump data. For the same reason it is very important to not only
+write out the encrypted vcpu state, but also the unencrypted state
+from the hypervisor.
+
+The memory state is further divided into the encrypted memory and its
+encryption tweaks / status flags. The encrypted memory can simply be
+read once it has been exported. The time of the export does not matter
+as no re-encryption is needed. Memory that has been swapped out and
+hence was exported can be read from the swap and written to the dump
+target without need for any special actions.
+
+The tweaks / status flags for the exported pages need to be requested
+from the Ultravisor.
+
+Finalization
+The finalization step will provide the data needed to be able to
+decrypt the vcpu and memory data and end the dump process. When this
+step completes successfully a new dump initiation can be started.
-- 
2.32.0


  parent reply	other threads:[~2022-02-23  9:20 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-02-23  9:19 [PATCH 0/9] kvm: s390: Add PV dump support Janosch Frank
2022-02-23  9:19 ` [PATCH 1/9] s390x: Add SE hdr query information Janosch Frank
2022-03-01 17:22   ` Claudio Imbrenda
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 2/9] s390: uv: Add dump fields to query Janosch Frank
2022-03-01 17:24   ` Claudio Imbrenda
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 3/9] KVM: s390: pv: Add query interface Janosch Frank
2022-02-23 11:30   ` Thomas Huth
2022-02-23 12:47     ` Janosch Frank
2022-03-01 17:32     ` Claudio Imbrenda
2022-03-02  9:03       ` Janosch Frank
2022-03-02 12:04   ` Claudio Imbrenda
2022-03-02 12:41     ` Janosch Frank
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 4/9] KVM: s390: pv: Add dump support definitions Janosch Frank
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 5/9] KVM: s390: pv: Add query dump information Janosch Frank
2022-03-01 17:34   ` Claudio Imbrenda
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 6/9] kvm: s390: Add configuration dump functionality Janosch Frank
2022-02-23 18:13   ` kernel test robot
2022-02-23 19:25   ` kernel test robot
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 7/9] kvm: s390: Add CPU " Janosch Frank
2022-02-23 19:46   ` kernel test robot
2022-02-23  9:20 ` Janosch Frank [this message]
2022-02-23  9:20 ` [PATCH 9/9] Documentation/virt/kvm/api.rst: Add protvirt dump/info api descriptions Janosch Frank
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2022-04-28 13:00 [PATCH 0/9] kvm: s390: Add PV dump support Janosch Frank
2022-04-28 13:01 ` [PATCH 8/9] Documentation: virt: Protected virtual machine dumps Janosch Frank

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20220223092007.3163-9-frankja@linux.ibm.com \
    --to=frankja@linux.ibm.com \
    --cc=borntraeger@linux.ibm.com \
    --cc=david@redhat.com \
    --cc=imbrenda@linux.ibm.com \
    --cc=kvm@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=linux-s390@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox