Re: [RFC PATCH] virtio_ring: Use DMA API if guest memory is encrypted

From: Jason Wang
Date: Tue Jan 29 2019 - 22:05:58 EST



On 2019/1/30 äå10:36, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 10:24:01AM +0800, Jason Wang wrote:
On 2019/1/30 äå3:02, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 03:42:44PM -0200, Thiago Jung Bauermann wrote:
Fixing address of powerpc mailing list.

Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Hello,

With Christoph's rework of the DMA API that recently landed, the patch
below is the only change needed in virtio to make it work in a POWER
secure guest under the ultravisor.

The other change we need (making sure the device's dma_map_ops is NULL
so that the dma-direct/swiotlb code is used) can be made in
powerpc-specific code.

Of course, I also have patches (soon to be posted as RFC) which hook up
<linux/mem_encrypt.h> to the powerpc secure guest support code.

What do you think?

From d0629a36a75c678b4a72b853f8f7f8c17eedd6b3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2019 22:08:02 -0200
Subject: [RFC PATCH] virtio_ring: Use DMA API if guest memory is encrypted

The host can't access the guest memory when it's encrypted, so using
regular memory pages for the ring isn't an option. Go through the DMA API.

Signed-off-by: Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Well I think this will come back to bite us (witness xen which is now
reworking precisely this path - but at least they aren't to blame, xen
came before ACCESS_PLATFORM).

I also still think the right thing would have been to set
ACCESS_PLATFORM for all systems where device can't access all memory.

But I also think I don't have the energy to argue about power secure
guest anymore. So be it for power secure guest since the involved
engineers disagree with me. Hey I've been wrong in the past ;).

But the name "sev_active" makes me scared because at least AMD guys who
were doing the sensible thing and setting ACCESS_PLATFORM (unless I'm
wrong? I reemember distinctly that's so) will likely be affected too.
We don't want that.

So let's find a way to make sure it's just power secure guest for now
pls.

I also think we should add a dma_api near features under virtio_device
such that these hacks can move off data path.

Anyway the current Xen code is conflict with spec which said:

"If this feature bit is set to 0, then the device has same access to memory
addresses supplied to it as the driver has. In particular, the device will
always use physical addresses matching addresses used by the driver
(typically meaning physical addresses used by the CPU) and not translated
further, and can access any address supplied to it by the driver. When
clear, this overrides any platform-specific description of whether device
access is limited or translated in any way, e.g. whether an IOMMU may be
present. "

I wonder how much value that the above description can give us. It's kind of
odd that the behavior of "when the feature is not negotiated" is described
in the spec.
Hmm what's odd about it? We need to describe the behaviour is all cases.


Well, try to limit the behavior of 'legacy' driver is tricky or even impossible. Xen is an exact example for this.



Personally I think we can remove the above and then we can
switch to use DMA API unconditionally in guest driver. It may have single
digit regression probably, we can try to overcome it.

Thanks
This has been discussed ad nauseum. virtio is all about compatibility.
Losing a couple of lines of code isn't worth breaking working setups.
People that want "just use DMA API no tricks" now have the option.
Setting a flag in a feature bit map is literally a single line
of code in the hypervisor. So stop pushing for breaking working
legacy setups and just fix it in the right place.


I may miss soemthing, which kind of legacy setup is broken? Do you mean using virtio without IOMMU_PLATFORM on platform with IOMMU? We actually unbreak this setup.

Thanks



By the way could you please respond about virtio-iommu and
why there's no support for ACCESS_PLATFORM on power?

I have Cc'd you on these discussions.


Thanks!


---
drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c | 5 ++++-
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
index cd7e755484e3..321a27075380 100644
--- a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
+++ b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
@@ -259,8 +259,11 @@ static bool vring_use_dma_api(struct virtio_device *vdev)
* not work without an even larger kludge. Instead, enable
* the DMA API if we're a Xen guest, which at least allows
* all of the sensible Xen configurations to work correctly.
+ *
+ * Also, if guest memory is encrypted the host can't access
+ * it directly. In this case, we'll need to use the DMA API.
*/
- if (xen_domain())
+ if (xen_domain() || sev_active())
return true;

return false;
--
Thiago Jung Bauermann
IBM Linux Technology Center