Re: [Qemu-devel] Emulation of TCG OPAL self-encrypting drive

[John Snow <jsnow@redhat.com>]

On 1/7/19 4:16 AM, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 05, 2019 at 07:27:03PM +0100, David Kozub wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Can QEMU emulate an OPAL disk? The only relevant thing I found is a post
>> from 2017 about TPM that mentions OPAL:
>> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-07/msg04586.html
> 
> CCing John Snow (IDE/ATA) and Kevin Wolf (QEMU block layer).
> 
>> specifically this bit:
>>
>>> Well, at some point somebody's going to want us to implement this,
>>> but... they can do that when they do that.
>>
>> So I assume it is not implemented. (?)
> 
> Right.
> 
>> I agree with the sentiment expressed in the mail linked above w.r.t. OPAL
>> security. I'm interested in this from SW development/debugging/fiddling
>> perspective. A sufficient solution for me would not add any real encryption
> 
> QEMU supports LUKS encrypted disk images so no new code is needed for
> the actual encryption.
> 
>> but would respond to the various OPAL commands send via ATA TRUSTED
>> SEND/RECEIVE commands.
>>
>> In fact, a more generic solution would work for me: If it was possible to
>> send ATA commands from QEMU to a separate process which could then handle
>> them as it liked and reply back to QEMU. This could be useful for other
>> fiddling/debugging situations too.
> 
> Might as well implement it in QEMU so users can easily take advantage of
> it without setting up external software.
> 
>> Or, just a pass-through to a block device in the host - but a pass-through
>> that would allow OPAL commands.
> 
> You can pass through a storage controller using PCI passthrough or you
> can pass through a SCSI LUN, but there is no ATA passthrough.
> 
>> I'm grateful for any hints/ideas. Perhaps something like this is already
>> possible with QEMU?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> David
>>

I can answer some questions about the ATA layer, but I'm not well read
on OPAL or the interrelationship between the two.

We don't have an ATA-style passthrough in QEMU right now and nobody has
ever asked! Would you mind elaborating for me what kind of setup you're
looking to accomplish and maybe I can give you some better hints?

--js