Re: [PATCHv5 02/19] mm: Do not use zero page in encrypted pages

From: Kirill A. Shutemov
Date: Fri Jul 20 2018 - 08:16:34 EST


On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 06:58:14AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> On 07/19/2018 12:16 AM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 10:36:24AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> >> On 07/17/2018 04:20 AM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> >>> Zero page is not encrypted and putting it into encrypted VMA produces
> >>> garbage.
> >>>
> >>> We can map zero page with KeyID-0 into an encrypted VMA, but this would
> >>> be violation security boundary between encryption domains.
> >> Why? How is it a violation?
> >>
> >> It only matters if they write secrets. They can't write secrets to the
> >> zero page.
> > I believe usage of zero page is wrong here. It would indirectly reveal
> > content of supposedly encrypted memory region.
> >
> > I can see argument why it should be okay and I don't have very strong
> > opinion on this.
>
> I think we should make the zero page work. If folks are
> security-sensitive, they need to write to guarantee it isn't being
> shared. That's a pretty low bar.
>
> I'm struggling to think of a case where an attacker has access to the
> encrypted data, the virt->phys mapping, *and* can glean something
> valuable from the presence of the zero page.

Okay.

> Please spend some time and focus on your patch descriptions. Use facts
> that are backed up and are *precise* or tell the story of how your patch
> was developed. In this case, citing the "security boundary" is not
> precise enough without explaining what the boundary is and how it is
> violated.

Fair enough. I'll go though all commit messages once again. Sorry.

--
Kirill A. Shutemov