Virtualization - Jan 2023 - [PATCH v1 2/6] virtio console: Harden port adding

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 02:47:55PM +0200, Alexander Shishkin
wrote:
> "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst at redhat.com> writes:
> 
> > On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 01:55:43PM +0200, Alexander Shishkin wrote:
> >> "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst at redhat.com> writes:
> >> 
> >> > On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 10:13:18PM +0200, Alexander Shishkin
wrote:
> >> >> When handling control messages, instead of peeking at the
device memory
> >> >> to obtain bits of the control structure,
> >> >
> >> > Except the message makes it seem that we are getting data
from
> >> > device memory, when we do nothing of the kind.
> >> 
> >> We can be, see below.
> >> 
> >> >> take a snapshot of it once and
> >> >> use it instead, to prevent it from changing under us.
This avoids races
> >> >> between port id validation and control event decoding,
which can lead
> >> >> to, for example, a NULL dereference in port removal of a
nonexistent
> >> >> port.
> >> >> 
> >> >> The control structure is small enough (8 bytes) that it
can be cached
> >> >> directly on the stack.
> >> >
> >> > I still have no real idea why we want a copy here.
> >> > If device can poke anywhere at memory then it can crash
kernel anyway.
> >> > If there's a bounce buffer or an iommu or some other
protection
> >> > in place, then this memory can no longer change by the time
> >> > we look at it.
> >> 
> >> We can have shared pages between the host and guest without bounce
> >> buffers in between, so they can be both looking directly at the
same
> >> page.
> >> 
> >> Regards,
> >
> > How does this configuration work? What else is in this page?
> 
> So, for example in TDX, you have certain pages as "shared", as in
> between guest and hypervisor. You can have virtio ring(s) in such
> pages.
That one's marked as dma coherent.
> It's likely that there'd be a swiotlb buffer there instead, but
> sharing pages between host virtio and guest virtio drivers is possible.
It's not something console does though, does it?
> Apologies if the language is confusing, I hope I'm answering the
> question.
> 
> Regards,
> --
> Alex
I'd like an answer to when does the console driver share the buffer
in question, not when generally some pages shared.

-- 
MST