Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Allow access to confidential computing secret area

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Thu May 20 2021 - 18:02:23 EST



On 5/20/2021 3:56 AM, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
* Brijes
The nice thing about Dov's device/file is that it's a simple text file
that userspace can then read the secret out of; I'm not sure if there's
anything similar in SNP (or for that matter TDX, cc'ing in Andi)

In TDX there are two different mechanisms:

- One is a ACPI table (SVKL) that allows to pass small pieces of data like keys from the BIOS. We have a little driver to read and clear the SVKL data. This would only be used if the TD BIOS does the negotiation for the secrets, which it doesn't do currently.

- In the other model the negotiation is done by a user program, just using another driver to issue calls to the TDX module. The calls just expose the TDREPORT, which encodes the attestation data, but does not actually include any secret. Then the negotiation for the secrets is done by the program, which can then pass it out to other programs (like mount for encrypted file systems). In such a case the secret is never touched by the kernel. At least initially we'll use the second option.

-Andi

57ccc1