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Date:   Thu, 10 Jun 2021 09:18:12 +0200
From:   Jens Wiklander <jens.wiklander@linaro.org>
To:     Sumit Garg <sumit.garg@linaro.org>
Cc:     Tyler Hicks <tyhicks@linux.microsoft.com>,
        Rijo-john.Thomas@amd.com, Allen Pais <apais@linux.microsoft.com>,
        Peter Huewe <peterhuewe@gmx.de>,
        Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko@kernel.org>,
        Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca>,
        Vikas Gupta <vikas.gupta@broadcom.com>,
        Thirupathaiah Annapureddy <thiruan@microsoft.com>,
        Pavel Tatashin <pasha.tatashin@soleen.com>,
        =?utf-8?B?UmFmYcWCIE1pxYJlY2tp?= <zajec5@gmail.com>,
        op-tee@lists.trustedfirmware.org,
        linux-integrity <linux-integrity@vger.kernel.org>,
        bcm-kernel-feedback-list@broadcom.com, linux-mips@vger.kernel.org,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 5/7] tee: Support shm registration without dma-buf
 backing
Message-ID: <20210610071812.GA2753553@jade>
References: <20210609002326.210024-1-tyhicks@linux.microsoft.com>
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On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 04:22:49PM +0530, Sumit Garg wrote:
> + Rijo
> 
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2021 at 11:16, Tyler Hicks <tyhicks@linux.microsoft.com> wrote:
[snip]
> 
> > - tee_shm_alloc() performs allocations using contiguous pages
> >   from alloc_pages() while tee_shm_register() performs non-contiguous
> >   allocations with kcalloc(). I suspect this would be fine but I don't
> >   know the secure world side of these things well enough to assess the
> >   risk involved with such a change on the kernel side.
> >
> 
> I don't think that would make any difference.

Agree.

> 
> > I should have mentioned this in the cover letter but my hope was that
> > these minimal changes would be accepted and then additional work could
> > be done to merge tee_shm_alloc() and tee_shm_register() in a way that
> > would allow the caller to request contiguous or non-contiguous pages,
> > fix up the additional issues mentioned above, and then adjust the
> > call sites in ftpm and tee_bnxt_fw as appropriate.
> >
> > I think that's a bigger set of changes because there are several things
> > that still confuse/concern me:
> >
> > - Why does tee_shm_alloc() use TEE_SHM_MAPPED while tee_shm_register()
> >   uses TEE_SHM_KERNEL_MAPPED or TEE_SHM_USER_MAPPED? Why do all three
> >   exist?
> 
> AFAIK, its due the the inherent nature of tee_shm_alloc() and
> tee_shm_register() where tee_shm_alloc() doesn't need to know whether
> its a kernel or user-space memory since it is the one that allocates
> whereas tee_shm_register() need to know that since it has to register
> pre-allocated client memory.
> 
> > - Why does tee_shm_register() unconditionally use non-contiguous
> >   allocations without ever taking into account whether or not
> >   OPTEE_SMC_SEC_CAP_DYNAMIC_SHM was set? It sounds like that's required
> >   from my reading of https://optee.readthedocs.io/en/latest/architecture/core.html#noncontiguous-shared-buffers.
> 
> Yeah, but do we have platforms in OP-TEE that don't support dynamic
> shared memory? I guess it has become the sane default which is a
> mandatory requirement when it comes to OP-TEE driver in u-boot.
> 
> > - Why is TEE_SHM_REGISTER implemented at the TEE driver level when it is
> >   specific to OP-TEE? How to better abstract that away?
> >
> 
> I would like you to go through Section "3.2.4. Shared Memory" in TEE
> Client API Specification. There are two standard ways for shared
> memory approach with TEE:
> 
> 1. A Shared Memory block can either be existing Client Application
> memory (kernel driver in our case) which is subsequently registered
> with the TEE Client API (using tee_shm_register() in our case).
> 
> 2. Or memory which is allocated on behalf of the Client Application
> using the TEE
> Client API (using tee_shm_alloc() in our case).
> 
> > Let me know if you agree with the more minimal approach that I took for
> > these bug fix series or still feel like tee_shm_register() should be
> > fixed up so that it is usable. Thanks!
> 
> From drivers perspective I think the change should be:
> 
> tee_shm_alloc()
> 
> to
> 
> kcalloc()
> tee_shm_register()

I had another approach in mind in "[PATCH 0/7] tee: shared memory updates",
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210609102324.2222332-1-jens.wiklander@linaro.org/

The flags needed by tee_shm_alloc() and tee_shm_register() aren't
very intuitive and in fact only accept quite few combinations. So my
idea was to hide those flags from callers outside of the TEE subsystem
with tee_shm_alloc_kernel_buf().

The approach with tee_shm_register() you suggest above has the drawback
that the TEE driver is forced to be able to handle any kernel memory.
This is OK with OP-TEE and dynamic shared memory enabled, but there are
platforms where dynamic shared memory isn't enabled. In those case must
the memory be allocated from a special pool.

Do you see any problem with instead replacing tee_shm_alloc()
with tee_shm_alloc_kernel_buf()?

Cheers,
Jens