Re: [RFC PATCH] x86/sev: Disallow userspace access to BIOS region for SEV-SNP guests

Dan Williams
2025-04-10T19:20:49Z

Nikolay Borisov wrote:
[..]
> >> Can't we simply treat return value of 2 for range_is_allowed the same way as
> >> if 0 was returned in mmap_mem and simply fail the call with -EPERM?
> >
> > The historical concern was that EPERM would break old tools. I don't
> > have any current evidence either way, though.
>
> Right, but we are only about to return 2 in a TVM context, so chances of
> running old tools are slim to none. Also it's perfectly valid to have
> mmap fail for a number of reasons, so old tools should be equipped with
> handling it returning -EPERM, no ?

In practice that is yet another return code since the caller does not
know why the "2" is being returned and it is not clear how safe it is to
now start denying mmap in the !TVM case. So, perhaps something like this:

enum devmem_policy {
DEVMEM_DENY,
DEVMEM_ALLOW,
DEVMEM_ZERO_RW, /* XXX: fix mmap_mem to install zeroes? */
DEVMEM_ZERO_RW_DENY_MMAP,
};

The hope is that legacy tools are either fine with open() failures due
to the prevalance of lockdown, fine with read/write of zeroes to BIOS
data due to the prevalance of CONFIG_STRICT_DEVMEM, or otherwise would
not notice / break when mmap() starts failing for BIOS data in the TVM
case. The !TVM case continues with the current gap for mmap.

Or, rip the bandaid and do this to see who screams:

enum devmem_policy {
DEVMEM_DENY,
DEVMEM_ALLOW,
DEVMEM_ZERO_RW_DENY_MMAP,
};