Re: Should SEV-ES #VC use IST? (Re: [PATCH] Allow RDTSC and RDTSCP from userspace)

Peter Zijlstra
2020-06-23T11:07:37Z

On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 09:55:12AM +0200, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 10:37:41AM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > I have a somewhat serious question: should we use IST for #VC at all?
> > As I understand it, Rome and Naples make it mandatory for hypervisors
> > to intercept #DB, which means that, due to the MOV SS mess, it's sort
> > of mandatory to use IST for #VC. But Milan fixes the #DB issue, so,
> > if we're running under a sufficiently sensible hypervisor, we don't
> > need IST for #VC.
>
> The reason for #VC being IST is not only #DB, but also SEV-SNP. SNP adds
> page ownership tracking between guest and host, so that the hypervisor
> can't remap guest pages without the guest noticing.
>
> If there is a violation of ownership, which can happen at any memory
> access, there will be a #VC exception to notify the guest. And as this
> can happen anywhere, for example on a carefully crafted stack page set
> by userspace before doing SYSCALL, the only robust choice for #VC is to
> use IST.

So what happens if this #VC triggers on the first access to the #VC
stack, because the malicious host has craftily mucked with only the #VC
IST stack page?

Or on the NMI IST stack, then we get #VC in NMI before the NMI can fix
you up.

AFAICT all of that is non-recoverable.