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Subject: Re: [virtio-dev] Re: Vhost-pci RFC2.0


On 2017-04-19 13:11, Wei Wang wrote:
> On 04/19/2017 06:36 PM, Jan Kiszka wrote:
>> On 2017-04-19 12:02, Wei Wang wrote:
>>>>>>> The design presented here intends to use only one BAR to expose
>>>>>>> both TX and RX. The two VMs share an intermediate memory
>>>>>>> here, why couldn't we give the same permission to TX and RX?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> For security and/or safety reasons: the TX side can then safely
>>>>>> prepare
>>>>>> and sign a message in-place because the RX side cannot mess around
>>>>>> with
>>>>>> it while not yet being signed (or check-summed). Saves one copy
>>>>>> from a
>>>>>> secure place into the shared memory.
>>>>> If we allow guest1 to write to RX, what safety issue would it cause to
>>>>> guest2?
>>>> This way, guest1 could trick guest2, in a race condition, to sign a
>>>> modified message instead of the original one.
>>>>
>>> Just align the context that we are talking about: RX is the intermediate
>>> shared ring that guest1 uses to receive packets and guest2 uses to send
>>> packet.
>>>
>>> Seems the issue is that guest1 will receive a hacked message from RX
>>> (modified by itself). How would it affect guest2?
>> Retry: guest2 wants to send a signed/hashed message to guest1. For that
>> purpose, it starts to build that message inside the shared memory that
>> guest1 can at least read, then guest2 signs that message, also in-place.
>> If guest1 can modify the message inside the ring while guest2 has not
>> yet signed it, the result is invalid.
>>
>> Now, if guest2 is the final receiver of the message, nothing is lost,
>> guest2 just shot itself into the foot. However, if guest2 is just a
>> router (gray channel) and the message travels further, guest2 now has
>> corrupted that channel without allowing the final receive to detect
>> that. That's the scenario.
> 
> If guest2 has been a malicious guest, I think it wouldn't make a
> difference whether we protect the shared RX or not. As a router,
> guest2 can play tricks on the messages after read it and then
> send the modified message to a third man, right?

It can swallow it, "steal" it (redirect), but it can't manipulate the
signed content without being caught, that's the idea. It's particularly
relevant for safety-critical traffic from one safe application to
another over unreliable channels, but it may also be relevant for the
integrity of messages in a secure setup.

> 
>>>>>>>>>      Fig. 4 shows the inter-VM notification path for 2.0 (2.1 is
>>>>>>>>> similar).
>>>>>>>>> The four eventfds are allocated by virtio-net, and shared with
>>>>>>>>> vhost-pci-net:
>>>>>>>>> Uses virtio-net’s TX/RX kickfd as the vhost-pci-net’s RX/TX callfd
>>>>>>>>> Uses virtio-net’s TX/RX callfd as the vhost-pci-net’s RX/TX kickfd
>>>>>>>>> Example of how it works:
>>>>>>>>> After packets are put into vhost-pci-net’s TX, the driver kicks
>>>>>>>>> TX,
>>>>>>>>> which
>>>>>>>>> causes the an interrupt associated with fd3 to be injected to
>>>>>>>>> virtio-net
>>>>>>>>>      The draft code of the 2.0 design is ready, and can be found
>>>>>>>>> here:
>>>>>>>>> Qemu: _https://github.com/wei-w-wang/vhost-pci-device_
>>>>>>>>> Guest driver: _https://github.com/wei-w-wang/vhost-pci-driver_
>>>>>>>>>      We tested the 2.0 implementation using the Spirent packet
>>>>>>>>> generator to transmit 64B packets, the results show that the
>>>>>>>>> throughput of vhost-pci reaches around 1.8Mpps, which is around
>>>>>>>>> two times larger than the legacy OVS+DPDK. Also, vhost-pci shows
>>>>>>>>> better scalability than OVS+DPDK.
>>>>>>>>>      
>>>>>>>> Do you have numbers for the symmetric 2.1 case as well? Or is the
>>>>>>>> driver
>>>>>>>> not yet ready for that yet? Otherwise, I could try to make it work
>>>>>>>> over
>>>>>>>> a simplistic vhost-pci 2.1 version in Jailhouse as well. That would
>>>>>>>> give
>>>>>>>> a better picture of how much additional complexity this would mean
>>>>>>>> compared to our ivshmem 2.0.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Implementation of 2.1 is not ready yet. We can extend it to 2.1
>>>>>>> after
>>>>>>> the common driver frame is reviewed.
>>>>>> Can you you assess the needed effort?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For us, this is a critical feature, because we need to decide if
>>>>>> vhost-pci can be an option at all. In fact, the "exotic ring" will be
>>>>>> the only way to provide secure inter-partition communication on
>>>>>> Jailhouse.
>>>>>>
>>>>> If what is here for 2.0 is suitable to be upstream-ed, I think it will
>>>>> be easy
>>>>> to extend it to 2.1 (probably within 1 month).
>>>> Unfortunate ordering here, though. Specifically if we need to modify
>>>> existing things instead of just adding something. We will need 2.1
>>>> prior
>>>> to committing to 2.0 being the right thing.
>>>>
>>> If you want, we can get the common part of design ready first,
>>> then we can start to build on the common part at the same time.
>>> The draft code of 2.0 is ready. I can clean it up, making it easier for
>>> us to continue and change.
>> Without going into details yet, a meta requirement for us will be to
>> have advanced features optional, negotiable. Basically, we would like to
>> minimize the interface to an equivalent of what the ivshmem 2.0 is about
>> (there is no need for more in a safe/secure partitioning scenario). At
>> the same time, the complexity for a guest should remain low as well.
>>
>>  From past experience, the only way to ensure that is having a working
>> prototype. So I will have to look into enabling that.
>>
> 
> OK. Looks like the ordering needs to be changed. This doesn't appear
> to be a problem to me.
> 
> If the final design doesn't deviate a lot from what's presented here,
> I think it should be easy to get 2.1 implemented quickly.
> Let's first get the design ready, then assess the effort for
> implementation.
> 

OK, thanks.

Jan

-- 
Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, CT RDA ITP SES-DE
Corporate Competence Center Embedded Linux


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