Re: [RFC PATCH v2 00/11] x86: Support Intel Key Locker

[Sean Christopherson]

On Wed, May 19, 2021, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On 5/18/21 10:52 AM, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> > On Tue, May 18, 2021, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> >> On 5/17/21 11:21 AM, Bae, Chang Seok wrote:
> >>> First of all, there is an RFC series for KVM [2].
> >>>
> >>> Each CPU has one internal key state so it needs to reload it between guest and
> >>> host if both are enabled. The proposed approach enables it exclusively; expose
> >>> it to guests only when disabled in a host. Then, I guess a guest may enable it.
> >>
> >> I read that series.  This is not a good solution.
> >>
> >> I can think of at least a few reasonable ways that a host and a guest
> >> can cooperate to, potentially, make KL useful.
> >>
> >> a) Host knows that the guest will never migrate, and guest delegates
> >> IWKEY management to the host.  The host generates a random key and does
> >> not permit the guest to use LOADIWKEY.  The guest shares the random key
> >> with the host.  Of course, this means that a host key handle that leaks
> >> to a guest can be used within the guest.
> > 
> > If the guest and host share a random key, then they also share the key handle.
> > And that handle+key would also need to be shared across all guests.  I doubt this
> > option is acceptable on the security front.
> > 
> 
> Indeed.  Oddly, SGX has the exact same problem for any scenario in which
> SGX is used for HSM-like functionality, and people still use SGX.

The entire PRM/EPC shares a single key, but SGX doesn't rely on encryption to
isolate enclaves from other software, including other enclaves.  E.g. Intel could
ship a CPU with the EPC backed entirely by on-die cache and avoid hardware
encryption entirely.

> However, I suspect that there will be use cases in which exactly one VM
> is permitted to use KL.  Qubes might want that (any Qubes people around?)