From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48749) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Un3G0-0002bz-E2 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:51:50 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Un3Fx-0006xC-GY for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:51:48 -0400 Received: from mx.ipv6.kamp.de ([2a02:248:0:51::16]:40947 helo=mx01.kamp.de) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Un3Fx-0006wO-5I for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:51:45 -0400 Message-ID: <51B98822.1030402@kamp.de> Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:51:46 +0200 From: Peter Lieven MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <51B96205.4010601@kamp.de> <20130613084015.GF2633@stefanha-thinkpad.redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <20130613084015.GF2633@stefanha-thinkpad.redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] sanitize memory on system reset List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Stefan Hajnoczi Cc: "qemu-devel@nongnu.org" , "H. Peter Anvin" On 13.06.2013 10:40, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote: > On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 08:09:09AM +0200, Peter Lieven wrote: >> I was thinking if it would be a good idea to zeroize all memory resources on system reset and >> madvise dontneed them afterwards. This would avoid system reset attacks in case the attacker >> has only access to the console of a vServer but not on the physical host and it would shrink >> RSS size of the vServer siginificantly. > I wonder if you'll hit weird OS installers or PXE clients that rely on > stashing stuff in memory across reset. One point: Wouldn't a memory test which some systems do at startup break these as well? Peter