Re: [PATCH 06/10] qemu: Introduce shared_filesystems configuration option

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On Tue, Mar 26, 2024 at 01:15:41PM -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
> On 3/26/24 12:38, Andrea Bolognani wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 26, 2024 at 12:04:21PM -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
> > > On 3/26/24 11:54, Andrea Bolognani wrote:
> > > > The issue is that, when remember_owner is enabled, we perform a bunch
> > > > of additional locking on files around the actual relabel operation;
> > > > specifically, we call virSecurityManagerTransactionCommit() with the
> > > > last argument set to true.
> > > >
> > > > This doesn't seem to cause any issues in general, *except* when it
> > > > comes to swtpm's storage lock. The swtpm process holds this lock
> > > > while it's running, and only releases it once migration is triggered.
> > > > So, when we're about to start the target swtpm process and want to
> > > > prepare the environment by setting up labels, we try to acquire the
> > > > storage lock, and can't proceed because the source swtpm process is
> > > > still holding on to it.
> > >
> > > Who is 'we try to acquire the storage lock'? Is libvirt trying to acquire
> > > swtpm's storage lock? I would assume that only an instance of swtpm would
> > > acquire the lock.
> >
> > Yes, it's libvirt doing that. The lock is only held for a brief
> > period while labels are being applied, and released immediately
> > afterwards. swtpm is only launched once that's done, so generally
> > there's no conflict.
>
> Yes, I saw the code now. It kind of prevents lock files from being used.
>
> > In the migration case, things have worked so far because labeling in
> > general has been skipped for shared filesystem, which means that
> > locking was not performed either. This series changes things so that
> > labeling is necessary.
>
> Thanks for the re-cap.
> Does libvirt actually get involved in case of a migration failure and
> fallback to the source host so that it could again relabel all files before
> QEMU and swtpm (and possibly other virtual devices) again open their files?

Determining this is next in my to-do list :)

As I've explained in an earlier message, I believe things will be
fine on account of at least one of the hosts involved accessing the
storage via NFS, which doesn't support SELinux and is thus unaffected
by changes to labeling. But I still need to actually confirm that.

> > > > The hacky patch below makes migration work even when remember_owner
> > > > is enabled. Obviously I'd rewrite it so that we'd only skip locking
> > > > for incoming migration, but I wonder if there could be nasty side
> > > > effects to this...
> > > >
> > > > Other ideas? Can we perhaps change things so that swtpm releases the
> > > > lock earlier upon our request or something like that?
> > >
> > > Maybe below functiokn needs to be passed an array of exceptions, one being
> > > swtpm's lock file. I mean the lock file serves the purpose of locking via
> > > filesystem, so I don't think a third party should start interfering here and
> > > influencing the protocol ...
> >
> > I guess the idea behind the locking is to prevent unrelated processes
> > (and possibly other libvirt threads?) from stepping on each other's
> > toes. Some exceptions are carved out already, so it's not like
> > there's no precedent for what we're suggesting. I'm just concerned
> > about accidentally opening the door for fun race conditions or CVEs.
>
> Hm, maybe exceptions of filenames not to lock could be configured in the
> config file instead of hard coded but with concrete names already given in
> the sample config file so that users don't need to find out.
>
> Some ideas about exceptions for files not to lock:
> - there is a list of exception of files
> - check whether a file is locked by a process with a given name in an
> exception list (e.g., swtpm in /proc/<flock->l_pid>/comm ).

Ideally users wouldn't need to configure any of that, and libvirt can
instead figure things out automatically.

I had the "check whether the process currently holding the lock is
swtpm, ignore the failure if so" thought as well, perhaps that could
be the way to go.

Or keep it simple and just don't attempt to lock the swtpm files if
we know we're preparing for migration, if we can determine that it's
safe to do so.

-- 
Andrea Bolognani / Red Hat / Virtualization
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