Re: [RFC PATCH v2 2/2] target/ppc: make gdb able to translate priviledged addresses

[Fabiano Rosas]

"Bruno Larsen (billionai)" <bruno.larsen@eldorado.org.br> writes:

> This patch changes ppc_cpu_get_phys_page_debug so that it is now
> able to translate both, priviledged and real mode addresses
> independently of whether the CPU executing it has those permissions
>
> This was mentioned by Fabiano as something that would be very useful to
> help with debugging, but could possibly constitute a security issue if
> that debug function can be called in some way by prodution code.

Thinking a bit more about this, I think we just need to make sure that
this is not called during the regular operation of the virtual
machine. So not as much a security issue, more of a correctness one.

> the
> solution was implemented such that it would be trivial to wrap it around
> ifdefs for building only with --enable-debug, for instance, but we are
> not sure this is the best approach, hence why it is an RFC.
>
> Suggested-by: Fabiano Rosas <farosas@linux.ibm.com>
> Signed-off-by: Bruno Larsen (billionai) <bruno.larsen@eldorado.org.br>
> ---
>  target/ppc/mmu_helper.c | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 23 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/target/ppc/mmu_helper.c b/target/ppc/mmu_helper.c
> index 9dcdf88597..41c727c690 100644
> --- a/target/ppc/mmu_helper.c
> +++ b/target/ppc/mmu_helper.c
> @@ -2947,6 +2947,29 @@ hwaddr ppc_cpu_get_phys_page_debug(CPUState *cs, vaddr 
> addr)
>                    cpu_mmu_index(&cpu->env, true), false)) {
>          return raddr & TARGET_PAGE_MASK;
>      }
> +
> +    /*
> +     * This is a fallback, in case we're asking for priviledged memory to
> +     * be printed, but the PCU is not executing in a priviledged manner.
> +     *
> +     * The code could be considered a security vulnerability if
> +     * this function can be called in a scenario that does not involve
> +     * debugging.
> +     * Given the name and how useful using real addresses may be for
> +     * actually debugging, however, we decided to include it anyway and
> +     * discuss how to best avoid the possible security concerns.
> +     * The current plan is that, if there is a chance this code is called in
> +     * a production environment, we can surround it with ifdefs so that it
> +     * is only compiled with --enable-debug
> +     */
> +        /* attempt to translate first with virtual addresses */
> +    if (ppc_xlate(cpu, addr, MMU_DATA_LOAD, &raddr, &s, &p, 1, false) ||
> +        ppc_xlate(cpu, addr, MMU_INST_FETCH, &raddr, &s, &p, 1, false) ||
> +        /* if didn't work, attempt to translate with real addresses */
> +        ppc_xlate(cpu, addr, MMU_DATA_LOAD, &raddr, &s, &p, 3, false) ||
> +        ppc_xlate(cpu, addr, MMU_INST_FETCH, &raddr, &s, &p, 3, false)) {
> +        return raddr & TARGET_PAGE_MASK;
> +    }

If this is only used during debug we could just give it the highest
mmu_idx, no need for a fallback.

Now, it might be possible that people use GDB to debug some aspect of
the MMU emulation, in which case it would be more useful to have the GDB
access fail just as the CPU would. But from my perspective it would be
better to have GDB access all of the guest memory without restriction.

>      return -1;
>  }