Re: [RFC Patch 0/7] kernel: Introduce multikernel architecture support

Stefan Hajnoczi
2025-09-23T17:05:56Z

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On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 03:41:18PM -0700, Cong Wang wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 7:28 AM Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 02:40:18PM -0700, Cong Wang wrote:
> > > On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 2:27 PM Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Sep 18, 2025 at 03:25:59PM -0700, Cong Wang wrote:
> > > > > This patch series introduces multikernel architecture support, enabling
> > > > > multiple independent kernel instances to coexist and communicate on a
> > > > > single physical machine. Each kernel instance can run on dedicated CPU
> > > > > cores while sharing the underlying hardware resources.
> > > > >
> > > > > The multikernel architecture provides several key benefits:
> > > > > - Improved fault isolation between different workloads
> > > > > - Enhanced security through kernel-level separation
> > > >
> > > > What level of isolation does this patch series provide? What stops
> > > > kernel A from accessing kernel B's memory pages, sending interrupts to
> > > > its CPUs, etc?
> > >
> > > It is kernel-enforced isolation, therefore, the trust model here is still
> > > based on kernel. Hence, a malicious kernel would be able to disrupt,
> > > as you described. With memory encryption and IPI filtering, I think
> > > that is solvable.
> >
> > I think solving this is key to the architecture, at least if fault
> > isolation and security are goals. A cooperative architecture where
> > nothing prevents kernels from interfering with each other simply doesn't
> > offer fault isolation or security.
>
> Kernel and kernel modules can be signed today, kexec also supports
> kernel signing via kexec_file_load(). It migrates at least untrusted
> kernels, although kernels can be still exploited via 0-day.

Kernel signing also doesn't protect against bugs in one kernel
interfering with another kernel.

> >
> > On CPU architectures that offer additional privilege modes it may be
> > possible to run a supervisor on every CPU to restrict access to
> > resources in the spawned kernel. Kernels would need to be modified to
> > call into the supervisor instead of accessing certain resources
> > directly.
> >
> > IOMMU and interrupt remapping control would need to be performed by the
> > supervisor to prevent spawned kernels from affecting each other.
>
> That's right, security vs performance. A lot of times we have to balance
> between these two. This is why Kata Container today runs a container
> inside a VM.
>
> This largely depends on what users could compromise, there is no single
> right answer here.
>
> For example, in a fully-controlled private cloud, security exploits are
> probably not even a concern. Sacrificing performance for a non-concern
> is not reasonable.
>
> >
> > This seems to be the price of fault isolation and security. It ends up
> > looking similar to a hypervisor, but maybe it wouldn't need to use
> > virtualization extensions, depending on the capabilities of the CPU
> > architecture.
>
> Two more points:
>
> 1) Security lockdown. Security lockdown transforms multikernel from
> "0-day means total compromise" to "0-day means single workload
> compromise with rapid recovery." This is still a significant improvement
> over containers where a single kernel 0-day compromises everything
> simultaneously.

I don't follow. My understanding is that multikernel currently does not
prevent spawned kernels from affecting each other, so a kernel 0-day in
multikernel still compromises everything?

>
> 2) Rapid kernel updates: A more practical way to eliminate 0-day
> exploits is to update kernel more frequently, today the major blocker
> is the downtime required by kernel reboot, which is what multikernel
> aims to resolve.

If kernel upgrades are the main use case for multikernel, then I guess
isolation is not necessary. Two kernels would only run side-by-side for
a limited period of time and they would have access to the same
workloads.

Stefan

>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
> Cong Wang
>

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