Re: [Xen-devel] Questions about the usage of the vTPM implemented in Xen 4.3

[Jordi Cucurull Juan <jordi.cucurull@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Daniel,

Thanks for your thorough answer. I have a few comments below.

On 02/10/2014 08:40 PM, Daniel De Graaf wrote:
> On 02/05/2014 11:52 AM, Jordi Cucurull Juan wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I have recently configured a Xen 4.3 server with the vTPM enabled and a
>> guest virtual machine that takes advantage of it. After playing a bit
>> with it, I have a few questions:
>>
>> 1.According to the documentation, to shutdown the vTPM stubdom it is
>> only needed to normally shutdown the guest VM. Theoretically, the vTPM
>> stubdom automatically shuts down after this. Nevertheless, if I shutdown
>> the guest the vTPM stubdom continues active and, moreover, I can start
>> the machine again and the values of the vTPM are the last ones there
>> were in the previous instance of the guest. Is this normal?
>
> The documentation is in error here; while this was originally how the
> vTPM
> domain behaved, this automatic shutdown was not reliable: it was not done
> if the peer domain did not use the vTPM, and it was incorrectly triggered
> by pv-grub's use of the vTPM to record guest kernel measurements
> (which was
> the immediate reason for its removal). The solution now is to either
> send a
> shutdown request or simply destroy the vTPM upon guest shutdown.
>
> An alternative that may require less work on your part is to destroy
> the vTPM stub domain during a guest's construction, something like:
>
> #!/bin/sh -e
> xl destroy "$1-vtpm" || true
> xl create $1-vtpm.cfg
> xl create $1-domu.cfg
>
> Allowing a vTPM to remain active across a guest restart will cause the
> PCR values extended by pv-grub to be incorrect, as you observed in your
> second email. In order for the vTPM's PCRs to be useful for quotes or
> releasing sealed secrets, you need to ensure that a new vTPM is started
> if and only if it is paired with a corresponding guest.

I see a potential threat due to this behaviour (please correct me if I
am wrong).

Assume an administrator of Dom0 becomes malicious. Since the hypervisor
does not enforce the shut down of the vTPM domain, the malicious
administrator could try the following: 1) make a copy of the peer
domain, 2) manipulate the copy of the peer domain and disable its
measurements, 3) boot the original peer domain, 4) switch it off or
pause it, 5) boot the manipulated copy of the peer domain.

Then, the shown PCR values of the manipulated copy of the peer domain
are the ones measured by the original peer domain during the first boot.
But the manipulated copy is the one actually running. Hence, this could
not be detected nor by quoting the vTPM neither the pTPM.


May be, one possible solution could be to enforce an XSM FLASK policy to
prevent any user in Dom0 from destroying, shutting down or pausing a
domain. Then, measure the policy when Dom0 starts into a PCR of the
phsyical TPM. Nevertheless, on one hand I do not know if this is
feasible and, in the other hand, this prevents the system from
destroying the vTPM domain when the peer domain shuts down.

>
>> 2.In the documentation it is recommended to avoid accessing the physical
>> TPM from Dom0 at the same time than the vTPM Manager stubdom.
>> Nevertheless, I currently have the IMA and the Trousers enabled in Dom0
>> without any apparent issue. Why is not recommended directly accessing
>> the physical TPM of Dom0?
>
> While most of the time it is not a problem to have two entities
> talking to
> the physical TPM, it is possible for the trousers daemon in dom0 to
> interfere
> with key handles used by the TPM Manager. There are also certain
> operations
> of the TPM that may not handle concurrency, although I do not believe
> that
> trousers uses them - SHA1Start, the DAA commands, and certain audit logs
> come to mind.
>
> The other reason why it is recommended to avoid pTPM access from dom0 is
> because the ability to send unseal/unbind requests to the physical TPM
> makes
> it possible for applications running in dom0 to decrypt the TPM Manager's
> data (and thereby access vTPM private keys).
>
> At present, sharing the physical TPM between dom0 and the TPM Manager is
> the only way to get full integrity checks.

OK, I see. Hence leaving the TPM support enabled in Dom0 opens a
security problem to the vTPM. But if we do not enable the support, the
integrity of Dom0 cannot be proved using the TPM (e.g. by remote
attestation).

>
>> 3.If it is not recommended to directly accessing the physical TPM in
>> Dom0, which is the advisable way to check the integrity of this domain?
>> With solutions such as TBOOT and IntelTXT?
>
> While the TPM Manager in Xen 4.3/4.4 does not yet have this
> functionality,
> an update which I will be submitting for inclusion in Xen 4.5 has the
> ability to get physical TPM quotes using a virtual TPM. Combined with an
> early domain builder, the eventual goal is to have dom0 use a vTPM for
> its integrity/reporting/sealing operations, and use the physical TPM only
> to secure the secrets of vTPMs and for deep quotes to provide fresh
> proofs
> of the system's state.

This sounds really good. I look forward to try it in Xen 4.5!!


Thank you for your answers!
Jordi.

>
>> Best regards,
>> Jordi.
>


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