Linux Virtualization - Aug 2014 - GET_RNG_SEED hypercall ABI? (Re: [PATCH v5 0/5] random,x86,kvm: Rework arch RNG seeds and get some from kvm)

hpa pointed out that the ABI that I chose (an MSR from the KVM range
and a KVM cpuid bit) is unnecessarily KVM-specific.  It would be nice
to allocate an MSR that everyone involved can agree on and, rather
than relying on a cpuid bit, just have the guest probe for the MSR.

This leads to a few questions:

1. How do we allocate an MSR?  (For background, this would be an MSR
that either returns 64 bits of best-effort cryptographically secure
random data or fails with #GP.)

2. For KVM, what's the right way to allow QEMU to turn the feature on
and off?  Is this even necessary?  KVM currently doesn't seem to allow
QEMU to turn any of its MSRs off; it just allows QEMU to ask it to
stop advertising support.

3. QEMU people, can you please fix your RDMSR emulation to send #GP on
failure?  I can work around it for this MSR in the Linux code, but for
Pete's sake... :(

Thanks,
Andy

Il 27/08/2014 01:58, Andy Lutomirski ha scritto:
> hpa pointed out that the ABI that I chose (an MSR from the KVM range
> and a KVM cpuid bit) is unnecessarily KVM-specific.  It would be nice
> to allocate an MSR that everyone involved can agree on and, rather
> than relying on a cpuid bit, just have the guest probe for the MSR.
> 
> This leads to a few questions:
> 
> 1. How do we allocate an MSR?  (For background, this would be an MSR
> that either returns 64 bits of best-effort cryptographically secure
> random data or fails with #GP.)
Ask Intel? :)
> 2. For KVM, what's the right way to allow QEMU to turn the feature on
> and off?  Is this even necessary?  KVM currently doesn't seem to allow
> QEMU to turn any of its MSRs off; it just allows QEMU to ask it to
> stop advertising support.
Note that QEMU is not involved in the implementation of your feature,
only in advertising it.  You could look at CPUID at runtime, but that
would mean teaching KVM to look for the KVMKVMKVM\0\0\0 signature in the
CPUID data supplied by userspace.  I don't think this is particularly
useful.
> 3. QEMU people, can you please fix your RDMSR emulation to send #GP on
> failure?  I can work around it for this MSR in the Linux code, but for
> Pete's sake... :(
Sure, I will look at it.  Though I expect it was done because of MSRs
that are missing in QEMU (similar to how Linux doesn't #GP if compiled
with pvops).

Paolo

On 08/27/2014 12:00 AM, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Il 27/08/2014 01:58, Andy Lutomirski ha scritto:
>> hpa pointed out that the ABI that I chose (an MSR from the KVM range
>> and a KVM cpuid bit) is unnecessarily KVM-specific.  It would be nice
>> to allocate an MSR that everyone involved can agree on and, rather
>> than relying on a cpuid bit, just have the guest probe for the MSR.
>>
>> This leads to a few questions:
>>
>> 1. How do we allocate an MSR?  (For background, this would be an MSR
>> that either returns 64 bits of best-effort cryptographically secure
>> random data or fails with #GP.)
> 
> Ask Intel? :)
I'm going to poke around internally.  Intel might as a matter of policy
be reluctant to assign an MSR index specifically for software use, but
I'll try to find out.

	-hpa

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 04:58:34PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski
wrote:
> hpa pointed out that the ABI that I chose (an MSR from the KVM range
> and a KVM cpuid bit) is unnecessarily KVM-specific.  It would be nice
> to allocate an MSR that everyone involved can agree on and, rather
> than relying on a cpuid bit, just have the guest probe for the MSR.
> 
CPUID part allows feature to be disabled for machine compatibility purpose
during migration. Of course interface can explicitly state that one successful
use of the MSR does not mean that next use will not result in a #GP, but that
doesn't sound very elegant and is different from any other MSR out there.

--
			Gleb.

On Aug 28, 2014 7:17 AM, "Gleb Natapov" <gleb at kernel.org>
wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 04:58:34PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > hpa pointed out that the ABI that I chose (an MSR from the KVM range
> > and a KVM cpuid bit) is unnecessarily KVM-specific.  It would be nice
> > to allocate an MSR that everyone involved can agree on and, rather
> > than relying on a cpuid bit, just have the guest probe for the MSR.
> >
> CPUID part allows feature to be disabled for machine compatibility purpose
> during migration. Of course interface can explicitly state that one
successful
> use of the MSR does not mean that next use will not result in a #GP, but
that
> doesn't sound very elegant and is different from any other MSR out
there.
>
Is there a non-cpuid interface between QEMU and KVM for this?

AFAICT, even turning off cpuid bits for things like async pf doesn't
actually disable the MSRs (which is arguably an attack surface issue).

--Andy
> --
>                         Gleb.