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authorStefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>2025-03-05 21:53:36 +0800
committerStefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>2025-03-05 21:53:36 +0800
commit50aa3d0984d8a4a9c39d34e2f81e8a70674462e4 (patch)
tree51589eac6f145fadea42f30583967a9f434342d9 /docs/devel
parentb93c9dfd700ae91c0080694f53c281ef51b0d028 (diff)
parent2bc10b15deb4b29391628e10b18701bfbcf4be17 (diff)
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Merge tag 'firmware-20250304-pull-request' of https://gitlab.com/kraxel/qemu into staging
- add uefi variable store support # -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- # # iQIzBAABCgAdFiEEoDKM/7k6F6eZAf59TLbY7tPocTgFAmfG9m4ACgkQTLbY7tPo # cTgk8BAAn60ezSx2iet/JarkMugacOJ6C2UbVQho/Q3WCyrQ7K+F0NByczcfKLA6 # OZX84p93qxiK8KJ9tva41eOIYViyfsKf+wGUInNCbXbyGy7RZV3SjE5Yuk9BE9Ta # 8f/5dDGyCELQWliy4atLUWl2dL0rQ76twLZewYo9n2A+LijIzjuP+kVJeccK8U7A # qStio3rGZ0vul2OYhE3+veSXd2m2oU32Tce31MUoj9yCbTE1RZSKMXbwbUU/nul9 # RN3X0q4rvXKwbKMUdC+YI+oIzY/1nzrmy5zwwbJsAszsSKjAc2LZeoDqKdbOIynL # B01dorpg5pVxQUqHz1t+YTfGyuZaYDM6WsaGoU5/9QLW7ZbI857EULq7ptE3DVAS # YjHiBYqiiYYrCatV4UT1XjkRjX7W8lTdK2M+8Vh1E5b1pGpfPwuKE4YRGwMMK0Ac # 5LD9HMxnXIDOT9A6+tGc6GYLfT7YToFA3pHn6WdLlGSowB7sYVZy0/xGe3ABjvzt # WOl1WDWtHCpYIiROpEl+KkbRilwvbLF/IW7x0Ovfsjyh5ucBFu6ojxgRBcOee4Na # oeBz5GfpeIoelhWl1aSYIUrFCvN2Q/9EafHRsfTzPoKlD3t/7oLNYtMYloiQpsks # IPpD5OMMmWGaD2G76Nw24nS4+zUf4Gagg6+IAlYt6zjqnmxFWxY= # =HnUt # -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- # gpg: Signature made Tue 04 Mar 2025 20:47:42 HKT # gpg: using RSA key A0328CFFB93A17A79901FE7D4CB6D8EED3E87138 # gpg: Good signature from "Gerd Hoffmann (work) <kraxel@redhat.com>" [full] # gpg: aka "Gerd Hoffmann <gerd@kraxel.org>" [full] # gpg: aka "Gerd Hoffmann (private) <kraxel@gmail.com>" [full] # Primary key fingerprint: A032 8CFF B93A 17A7 9901 FE7D 4CB6 D8EE D3E8 7138 * tag 'firmware-20250304-pull-request' of https://gitlab.com/kraxel/qemu: (24 commits) docs: add uefi variable service documentation hw/uefi: add MAINTAINERS entry hw/uefi-vars-sysbus: allow for pc and q35 hw/uefi-vars-sysbus: allow for arm virt hw/uefi-vars-sysbus: add x64 variant hw/uefi-vars-sysbus: qemu platform bus support hw/uefi: add uefi-vars-sysbus device hw/uefi: add to meson hw/uefi: add UEFI_VARS to Kconfig hw/uefi: add trace-events hw/uefi: add var-service-json.c + qapi for NV vars. hw/uefi: add var-service-siglist.c hw/uefi: add var-service-pkcs7-stub.c hw/uefi: add var-service-pkcs7.c hw/uefi: add var-service-core.c hw/uefi: add var-service-policy.c hw/uefi: add var-service-auth.c hw/uefi: add var-service-vars.c hw/uefi: add var-service-utils.c hw/uefi: add var-service-guid.c ... Signed-off-by: Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@redhat.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/devel')
-rw-r--r--docs/devel/index-internals.rst1
-rw-r--r--docs/devel/uefi-vars.rst68
2 files changed, 69 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/devel/index-internals.rst b/docs/devel/index-internals.rst
index bca597c..7a0678c 100644
--- a/docs/devel/index-internals.rst
+++ b/docs/devel/index-internals.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ Details about QEMU's various subsystems including how to add features to them.
s390-cpu-topology
s390-dasd-ipl
tracing
+ uefi-vars
vfio-iommufd
writing-monitor-commands
virtio-backends
diff --git a/docs/devel/uefi-vars.rst b/docs/devel/uefi-vars.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0151a26
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/devel/uefi-vars.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+==============
+UEFI variables
+==============
+
+Guest UEFI variable management
+==============================
+
+The traditional approach for UEFI Variable storage in qemu guests is
+to work as close as possible to physical hardware. That means
+providing pflash as storage and leaving the management of variables
+and flash to the guest.
+
+Secure boot support comes with the requirement that the UEFI variable
+storage must be protected against direct access by the OS. All update
+requests must pass the sanity checks. (Parts of) the firmware must
+run with a higher privilege level than the OS so this can be enforced
+by the firmware. On x86 this has been implemented using System
+Management Mode (SMM) in qemu and kvm, which again is the same
+approach taken by physical hardware. Only privileged code running in
+SMM mode is allowed to access flash storage.
+
+Communication with the firmware code running in SMM mode works by
+serializing the requests to a shared buffer, then trapping into SMM
+mode via SMI. The SMM code processes the request, stores the reply in
+the same buffer and returns.
+
+Host UEFI variable service
+==========================
+
+Instead of running the privileged code inside the guest we can run it
+on the host. The serialization protocol can be reused. The
+communication with the host uses a virtual device, which essentially
+configures the shared buffer location and size, and traps to the host
+to process the requests.
+
+The ``uefi-vars`` device implements the UEFI virtual device. It comes
+in ``uefi-vars-x86`` and ``uefi-vars-sysbus`` flavours. The device
+reimplements the handlers needed, specifically
+``EfiSmmVariableProtocol`` and ``VarCheckPolicyLibMmiHandler``. It
+also consumes events (``EfiEndOfDxeEventGroup``,
+``EfiEventReadyToBoot`` and ``EfiEventExitBootServices``).
+
+The advantage of the approach is that we do not need a special
+privilege level for the firmware to protect itself, i.e. it does not
+depend on SMM emulation on x64, which allows the removal of a bunch of
+complex code for SMM emulation from the linux kernel
+(CONFIG_KVM_SMM=n). It also allows support for secure boot on arm
+without implementing secure world (el3) emulation in kvm.
+
+Of course there are also downsides. The added device increases the
+attack surface of the host, and we are adding some code duplication
+because we have to reimplement some edk2 functionality in qemu.
+
+usage on x86_64
+---------------
+
+.. code::
+
+ qemu-system-x86_64 \
+ -device uefi-vars-x86,jsonfile=/path/to/vars.json
+
+usage on aarch64
+----------------
+
+.. code::
+
+ qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt \
+ -device uefi-vars-sysbus,jsonfile=/path/to/vars.json