Re: [PATCH Part2 v5 00/45] Add AMD Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP) Hypervisor Support

From: Vlastimil Babka
Date: Mon Nov 29 2021 - 10:00:39 EST


On 11/29/21 15:44, Brijesh Singh wrote:
>
>
> On 11/25/21 4:05 AM, Joerg Roedel wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 09:48:14AM -0800, Dave Hansen wrote:
>>> That covers things like copy_from_user().  It does not account for
>>> things where kernel mappings are used, like where a
>>> get_user_pages()/kmap() is in play.
>>
>> The kmap case is guarded by KVM code, which locks the page first so that
>> the guest can't change the page state, then checks the page state, and
>> if it is shared does the kmap and the access.
>
>
> The KVM use-case is well covered in the series, but I believe Dave is
> highlighting what if the access happens outside of the KVM driver (such as a
> ptrace() or others).

AFAIU ptrace() is a scenario where the userspace mapping is being gup-ped,
not a kernel page being kmap()ed?

> One possible approach to fix this is to enlighten the kmap/unmap().
> Basically, move the per page locking mechanism used by the KVM in the
> arch-specific code and have kmap/kunmap() call the arch hooks. The arch
> hooks will do this:
>
> Before the map, check whether the page is added as a shared in the RMP
> table. If not shared, then error.
> Acquire a per-page map_lock.
> Release the per-page map_lock on the kunmap().
>
> The current patch set provides helpers to change the page from private to
> shared. Enhance the helpers to check for the per-page map_lock, if the
> map_lock is held then do not allow changing the page from shared to private.

That could work for the kmap() context.
What to do for the userspace context (host userspace)?
- shared->private transition - page has to be unmapped from all userspace,
elevated refcount (gup() in progress) can block this unmap until it goes
away - could be doable
- still, what to do if host userspace then tries to access the unmapped
page? SIGSEGV instead of SIGBUS and it can recover?



> Thoughts ?
>
>>
>> This should turn an RMP fault in the kernel which is not covered in the
>> uaccess exception table into a fatal error.
>>
>> Regards,
>>