Re: [PATCH v1 0/6] Harden a few virtio bits

From: Alexander Shishkin
Date: Fri Jan 20 2023 - 07:32:16 EST


"Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 03:57:15PM +0200, Alexander Shishkin wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Here are 6 patches that harden console, net and 9p drivers against
>> various malicious host input as well as close a bounds check bypass
>> in the split virtio ring.
>
> Hardening against buggy devices is one thing,
> Hardening against malicious devices is another.
> Which is this?

Well, the big difference is the intent, but buggy input is buggy input,
they've got that in common and we're trying to deal with it here.

The motivation for this patchset is protecting against malicious
devices.

> If really malicious, aren't there any spectre considerations here?
> I am for example surprised not to find anything addressing
> spectre v1 nor any uses of array_index_nospec here.

That's strange, patch 6/6 is exactly that. There's probably more coming
in the future as the analysis and audit progress.

Regards,
--
Alex