Re: [PATCH v2 0/9] iommu/vt-d: Improve PASID id and table management

From: Lu Baolu
Date: Wed May 16 2018 - 03:28:26 EST


Hi Joerg,

Thank you for looking at my patches.

On 05/15/2018 10:11 PM, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> On Fri, May 04, 2018 at 09:41:15AM +0800, Lu Baolu wrote:
>> PATCH 4~9 implement per domain PASID table. Current per IOMMU
>> PASID table implementation is insecure in the cases where
>> multiple devices under one single IOMMU unit support PASID
>> feature. With per domain PASID table, we can achieve finer
>> protection and isolation granularity.
>
> Hold on, we hat discussions in the past about doing a system-wide pasid
> space, so that every mm_struct with devices attached gets the same pasid
> across all devices it is talking to. Reason was that some devices (will)
> require this to work correctly. This goes into the opposite direction,
> so I am a bit confused here. Please explain, is this not longer
> necessary?

You are right. System-wide pasid space is necessary, hence PATCH
1~3 implement it. But PATCH 4~9 don't go into the opposite direction,
it's designed to address another potential issue.

With system-wide pasid space, we can use a system-wide pasid table,
or just keep what we have now(per iommu unit pasid table). Both
system-wide and per iommu unitpasid table mean that two devices
might share a single pasid table. That will result in an issue.

For an example, device A is assigned to access the memory space of
process A, and device B is assigned to access the memory space of
process B. The dma remapping infrastructure looks like:

.------------------.
.----------------. | |
| | | |
.----------------. | Paging structure |
| PASID X |--| | for Process A |
.----------------. | | |
| | --->'------------------'
.----------------. .----------------.
| | | PASID Y |--|
.----------------. .----------------. |
| Dev_A context |---| | | | .------------------.
'----------------' | .----------------. | | |
| | | | | | | |
'----------------' | .----------------. | | Paging structure |
| Dev_B context | -->| | | | for Process B |
'----------------'----->'----------------' | | |
| | system-wide v-->'------------------'
.----------------. pasid table
| |
'----------------'
Intel iommu
context table


Since dev_A and dev_B share a pasid table, the side effect is that a flawed
dev_A might access the memory space of process B (with pasid y). Vice versa,
a flawed dev_B might access memory space of process A (with pasid x).

What PATCH 4~9 do is to remove such possibility by assigning a pasid table
for each pci device. Hence, the remapping infrastructure looks like:


.------------------.
| |
.----------------. | |
| | | Paging structure |
.----------------. | for Process A |
| PASID X | | |
.----------------.----->'------------------'
| |
.----------------.
| |
.----------------.
| |
.----------------.
.----------------. | |
| | .----------------.
.----------------. | |
| Dev_A context |------>'----------------'
'----------------' pasid table
| | for Dev_A
'----------------'
| Dev_B context |-->
'----------------' | .----------------.
| | | | | .------------------.
.----------------. | .----------------. | |
| | | | | | |
'----------------' | .----------------. | Paging structure |
Intel iommu | | | | for Process B |
context table | .----------------. | |
| | PASID Y |----->'------------------'
| .----------------.
| | |
| .----------------.
| | |
| .----------------.
v--->| |
'----------------'
pasid table
for Dev_B


With this, dev_A has no means to access memory of process B and vice versa.

Best regards,
Lu Baolu