Re: [PATCH 5/5] vfio-pci: Allow to mmap MSI-X table if interrupt remapping is supported

[Yongji Xie]

Hi David and Kevin,

On 2016/5/5 17:54, David Laight wrote:

> From: Tian, Kevin
> > Sent: 05 May 2016 10:37
> ...
> > > Acutually, we are not aimed at accessing MSI-X table from
> > > guest. So I think it's safe to passthrough MSI-X table if we
> > > can make sure guest kernel would not touch MSI-X table in
> > > normal code path such as para-virtualized guest kernel on PPC64.
> > Then how do you prevent malicious guest kernel accessing it?
> Or a malicious guest driver for an ethernet card setting up
> the receive buffer ring to contain a single word entry that
> contains the address associated with an MSI-X interrupt and
> then using a loopback mode to cause a specific packet be
> received that writes the required word through that address.
>
> Remember the PCIe cycle for an interrupt is a normal memory write
> cycle.
>
> 	David

If we have enough permission to load a malicious driver or
kernel, we can easily break the guest without exposed
MSI-X table.

I think it should be safe to expose MSI-X table if we can
make sure that malicious guest driver/kernel can't use
the MSI-X table to break other guest or host. The
capability of IRQ remapping could provide this
kind of protection.

Thanks,
Yongji