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Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2024 15:52:26 +0100
From: "Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>
To: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
Cc: "Reshetova, Elena" <elena.reshetova@intel.com>,
	"Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>, "x86@kernel.org" <x86@kernel.org>,
	Kuppuswamy Sathyanarayanan <sathyanarayanan.kuppuswamy@linux.intel.com>,
	"Nakajima, Jun" <jun.nakajima@intel.com>,
	Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@amd.com>,
	"Kalra, Ashish" <ashish.kalra@amd.com>,
	Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
	"linux-coco@lists.linux.dev" <linux-coco@lists.linux.dev>,
	"linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] x86/random: Retry on RDSEED failure
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On Wed, Jan 31, 2024 at 03:45:06PM +0100, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2024 at 09:07:56AM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> > What about simply treating boot-time initialization of the /dev/random
> > state as special.  That is, on x86, if the hardware promises that
> > RDSEED or RDRAND is available, we use them to initialization our RNG
> > state at boot.  On bare metal, there can't be anyone else trying to
> > exhaust the on-chip RNG's entropy supply, so if RDSEED or RDRAND
> > aren't working available --- panic, since the hardware is clearly
> > busted.
> 
> This is the first thing I suggested here: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHmME9qsfOdOEHHw_MOBmt6YAtncbbqP9LPK2dRjuOp1CrHzRA@mail.gmail.com/
> 
> But Elena found this dissatisfying because we still can't guarantee new
> material later.
> 
> > On a guest OS, if confidential compute is enabled, and if RDSEED and
> > RDRAND don't work after N retries, and we know CC is enabled, panic,
> > since the kernel can't provide the promised security gaurantees, and
> > the CC developers and users are cordially invited to sharpen their
> > pitchforks and to send their tender regards to the Intel RNG
> > engineers.
> 
> Yea, maybe bubbling the RDRAND DoS up to another DoS in the CoCo case is
> a good tradeoff that will produce the right pitchforkers without
> breaking anything real.

One problem, though, is userspace can DoS the kernel's use of RDRAND.
So probably infinitely retrying in CoCo environments is better than
panicing/warning, since ostensibly a kthread will eventually succeed.

Maybe, though, the Intel platform just simply isn't ready for CoCo, and
marketing got a little bit ahead of the tech?

Jason