Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v2 1/3] x86/ldt: Make modify_ldt synchronous

[Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 22/07/2015 01:28, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2015 at 5:21 PM, Andrew Cooper
> <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On 22/07/2015 01:07, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jul 21, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Andrew Cooper
>>> <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On 21/07/2015 22:53, Boris Ostrovsky wrote:
>>>>> On 07/21/2015 03:59 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>>>>> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
>>>>>> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
>>>>>> @@ -34,6 +34,44 @@ static inline void load_mm_cr4(struct mm_struct
>>>>>> *mm) {}
>>>>>>   #endif
>>>>>>     /*
>>>>>> + * ldt_structs can be allocated, used, and freed, but they are never
>>>>>> + * modified while live.
>>>>>> + */
>>>>>> +struct ldt_struct {
>>>>>> +    int size;
>>>>>> +    int __pad;    /* keep the descriptors naturally aligned. */
>>>>>> +    struct desc_struct entries[];
>>>>>> +};
>>>>>
>>>>> This breaks Xen which expects LDT to be page-aligned. Not sure why.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jan, Andrew?
>>>> PV guests are not permitted to have writeable mappings to the frames
>>>> making up the GDT and LDT, so it cannot make unaudited changes to
>>>> loadable descriptors.  In particular, for a 32bit PV guest, it is only
>>>> the segment limit which protects Xen from the ring1 guest kernel.
>>>>
>>>> A lot of this code hasn't been touched in years, and it certainly
>>>> predates me.  The alignment requirement appears to come from the virtual
>>>> region Xen uses to map the guests GDT and LDT.  Strict alignment is
>>>> required for the GDT so Xen's descriptors starting at 0xe0xx are
>>>> correct, but the LDT alignment seems to be a side effect of similar
>>>> codepaths.
>>>>
>>>> For an LDT smaller than 8192 entries, I can't see any specific reason
>>>> for enforcing alignment, other than "that's the way it has always been".
>>>>
>>>> However, the guest would still have to relinquish write access to all
>>>> frames which make up the LDT, which looks to be a bit of an issue given
>>>> the snippet above.
>>> Does the LDT itself need to be aligned or just the address passed to
>>> paravirt_alloc_ldt?
>> The address which Xen receives needs to be aligned.
>>
>> It looks like xen_alloc_ldt() blindly assumes that the desc_struct *ldt
>> it is passed is page aligned, and passes it straight through.
> xen_alloc_ldt is just fiddling with protection though, I think.  Isn't
> it xen_set_ldt that's the meat?  We could easily pass xen_alloc_ldt a
> pointer to the ldt_struct.

So it is.  It is the linear_addr in xen_set_ldt() which Xen currently
audits to be page aligned.

>>>> This will allow ldt_struct itself to be page aligned, and for the size
>>>> field to sit across the base/limit field of what would logically be
>>>> selector 0x0008  There would be some issues accessing size.  To load
>>>> frames as an LDT, a guest must drop all refs to the page so that its
>>>> type may be changed from writeable to segdesc.  After that, an
>>>> update_descriptor hypercall can be used to change size, and I believe
>>>> the guest may subsequently recreate read-only mappings to the frames in
>>>> question (although frankly it is getting late so you will want to double
>>>> check all of this).
>>>>
>>>> Anyhow, this looks like an issue which should be fixed up with slightly
>>>> more PVOps, rather than enforcing a Xen view of the world on native Linux.
>>>>
>>> I could presumably make the allocation the other way around so the
>>> size is at the end.  I could even use two separate allocations if
>>> needed.
>> I suspect two separate allocations would be the better solution, as it
>> means that the size field doesn't need to be subject to funny page
>> permissions.
> True.  OTOH we never write to the size field after allocating the thing.

Right, but even reading it is going to cause problems if one of the
paravirt ops can't re-establish ro mappings.

~Andrew

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