Re: [PATCH 6/9] KVM: SVM: Add MSR_IA32_XSS to the GHCB for hypervisor kernel

[Sean Christopherson]

On Thu, Nov 02, 2023, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> On Tue, 2023-10-10 at 20:02 +0000, John Allen wrote:
> > @@ -3032,6 +3037,9 @@ static void sev_es_init_vmcb(struct vcpu_svm *svm)
> >  		if (guest_cpuid_has(&svm->vcpu, X86_FEATURE_RDTSCP))
> >  			svm_clr_intercept(svm, INTERCEPT_RDTSCP);
> >  	}
> > +
> > +	if (kvm_caps.supported_xss)
> > +		set_msr_interception(vcpu, svm->msrpm, MSR_IA32_XSS, 1, 1);
> 
> This is not just a virtualization hole. This allows the guest to set MSR_IA32_XSS
> to whatever value it wants, and thus it might allow XSAVES to access some host msrs
> that guest must not be able to access.
> 
> AMD might not yet have such msrs, but on Intel side I do see various components
> like 'HDC State', 'HWP state' and such.

The approach AMD has taken with SEV-ES+ is to have ucode context switch everything
that the guest can access.  So, in theory, if/when AMD adds more XCR0/XSS-based
features, that state will also be context switched.

Don't get me wrong, I hate this with a passion, but it's not *quite* fatally unsafe,
just horrific.

> I understand that this is needed so that #VC handler could read this msr, and
> trying to read it will cause another #VC which is probably not allowed (I
> don't know this detail of SEV-ES)
> 
> I guess #VC handler should instead use a kernel cached value of this msr
> instead, or at least KVM should only allow reads and not writes to it.

Nope, doesn't work.  In addition to automatically context switching state, SEV-ES
also encrypts the guest state, i.e. KVM *can't* correctly virtualize XSS (or XCR0)
for the guest, because KVM *can't* load the guest's desired value into hardware.

The guest can do #VMGEXIT (a.k.a. VMMCALL) all it wants to request a certain XSS
or XCR0, and there's not a damn thing KVM can do to service the request.