[virtio-dev] Re: Using packed virtqueues in Confidential VMs

On Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 03:02:45PM -0500, Stefan Hajnoczi wrote:
> Hi Elena,
> You raised concerns about using packed virtqueues with untrusted devices at
> Linux Plumbers Conference. I reviewed the specification and did not find
> fundamental issues that would preclude the use of packed virtqueues in
> untrusted devices. Do you have more information about issues with packed
> virtqueues?
> 
> I also reviewed Linux's virtio_ring.c to look for implementation issues. One
> thing I noticed was that detach_buf_packed -> vring_unmap_desc_packed trusts
> the fields of indirect descriptors that have been mapped to the device:
> 
>   flags = le16_to_cpu(desc->flags);
> 
>   dma_unmap_page(vring_dma_dev(vq),
>                  le64_to_cpu(desc->addr),
>                  le32_to_cpu(desc->len),
>                  (flags & VRING_DESC_F_WRITE) ?
>                  DMA_FROM_DEVICE : DMA_TO_DEVICE);
> 
> This could be problematic if the device is able to modify indirect descriptors.
> However, the indirect descriptor table is mapped with DMA_TO_DEVICE:
> 
>   addr = vring_map_single(vq, desc,
>                           total_sg * sizeof(struct vring_packed_desc),
>                           DMA_TO_DEVICE);
> 
> There is no problem when there is an enforcing IOMMU that maps the page with
> read-only permissions but that's not always the case. Software devices (QEMU,
> vhost kernel, or vhost-user) usually have full access to guest RAM.

Not with encrypted memory.

> They can
> cause dma_unmap_page() to be invoked with arguments of their choice (except for
> the first argument) by modifying indirect descriptors.

> I am not sure if this poses a danger since software devices already have access
> to guest RAM, but I think this code is risky. It would be safer for the driver
> to stash away the arguments needed for dma_unmap_page() in memory that is not
> mapped to the device.
> 
> Other than that, I didn't find any issues with the packed virtqueue
> implementation.
> 
> Stefan



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