It was found that a malicious HVM guest administrator can cause DoS, specifically prevent use of physical CPU for significant, perhaps indefinite period. When a benign exception occurs while delivering another benign exception, it is architecturally specified that these would be delivered sequentially. There are, however, cases where this results in an infinite loop inside the CPU, which (in the virtualized case) can be broken only by intercepting delivery of the respective exception.
When a guest sets up a hardware breakpoint covering a data structure involved in delivering #DB (Debug Exception), upon completion of the delivery of the first exception another #DB will need to be delivered. The effects slightly differ depending on further guest characteristics:
Guests running in 32-bit mode would be expected to sooner or later encounter another fault due to the stack pointer decreasing during each iteration of the loop. The most likely case would be #PF (Page Fault) due to running into unmapped virtual space. However, an infinite loop cannot be excluded (e.g. when the guest is running with paging disabled).
Guests running in long mode, but not using the IST (Interrupt Stack Table) feature for the IDT entry corresponding to #DB would behave similarly to guests running in 32-bit mode, just that the larger virtual address space allows for a much longer loop. The loop can't, however, be infinite, as eventually the stack pointer would move into non-canonical address space, causing #SS (Stack Fault) instead.
Guests running in long mode and using the IST for the IDT entry corresponding to #DB would enter an infinite loop, as the stack pointer wouldn't change between #DB instances.
If a host watchdog (Xen or dom0) is in use, this can lead to a watchdog timeout and consequently a reboot of the host. If another, innocent, guest, is configured with a watchdog, this issue can lead to a reboot of such a guest.
A privileged user inside guest could use this flaw to crash the host kernel resulting in DoS.
For KVM virtualisation, it only affects the AMD processor support, as for Intel it already intercepts the #DB exception.
Upstream KVM patch: ------------------- -> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/2082332
References: ----------- -> http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/11/10/1
ISSUE DESCRIPTION =================
Guests are currently permitted to modify all of the (writable) bits in the PCI command register of devices passed through to them. This in particular allows them to disable memory and I/O decoding on the device unless the device is an SR-IOV virtual function, in which case subsequent accesses to the respective MMIO or I/O port ranges would - - on PCI Express devices - lead to Unsupported Request responses. The treatmeant of such errors is platform specific.
IMPACT ======
In the event that the platform surfaces aforementioned UR responses as Non-Maskable Interrupts, and either the OS is configured to treat NMIs as fatal or (e.g. via ACPI's APEI) the platform tells the OS to treat these errors as fatal, the host would crash, leading to a Denial of Service.
VULNERABLE SYSTEMS ==================
Xen versions 3.3 and onwards are vulnerable due to supporting PCI pass-through. Upstream Linux versions 3.1 and onwards are vulnerable due to supporting PCI backend functionality. Other Linux versions as well as other OS versions may be vulnerable too.
Any domain which is given access to a non-SR-IOV virtual function PCI Express device can take advantage of this vulnerability.
MITIGATION ==========
This issue can be avoided by not assigning PCI Express devices other than SR-IOV virtual functions to untrusted guests.
RESOLUTION ==========
Applying the attached patch resolves this issue for upstream Linux.
xsa120.patch Linux 3.19
$ sha256sum xsa120.patch 5167215293d4a8a05f090fca5b20eb5878213a0158a0e7a12c245553db81a855 xsa120.patch
Xen 4.4.x and earlier, when using a large number of VCPUs, does not properly handle read and write locks, which allows local x86 guest users to cause a denial of service (write denial or NMI watchdog timeout and host crash) via a large number of read requests, a different vulnerability than CVE-2014-9065.
common/spinlock.c in Xen 4.4.x and earlier does not properly handle read and write locks, which allows local x86 guest users to cause a denial of service (write denial or NMI watchdog timeout and host crash) via a large number of read requests, a different vulnerability to CVE-2014-9066.
The dommuupdate function in arch/x86/mm.c in Xen 3.2.x through 4.4.x does not properly manage page references, which allows remote domains to cause a denial of service by leveraging control over an HVM guest and a crafted MMUMACHPHYSUPDATE.
The acceleration support for the "REP MOVS" instruction in Xen 4.4.x, 3.2.x, and earlier lacks properly bounds checking for memory mapped I/O (MMIO) emulated in the hypervisor, which allows local HVM guests to cause a denial of service (host crash) via unspecified vectors.
The x86emulate function in arch/x86/x86emulate/x86emulate.c in Xen 3.3.x through 4.4.x does not check the supervisor mode permissions for instructions that generate software interrupts, which allows local HVM guest users to cause a denial of service (guest crash) via unspecified vectors.
Race condition in HVMOPtrackdirtyvram in Xen 4.0.0 through 4.4.x does not ensure possession of the guarding lock for dirty video RAM tracking, which allows certain local guest domains to cause a denial of service via unspecified vectors.
The hvmmsrreadintercept function in arch/x86/hvm/hvm.c in Xen 4.1 through 4.4.x uses an improper MSR range for x2APIC emulation, which allows local HVM guests to cause a denial of service (host crash) or read data from the hypervisor or other guests via unspecified vectors.
The evtchnfifosetpending function in Xen 4.4.x allows local guest users to cause a denial of service (host crash) via vectors involving an uninitialized FIFO-based event channel control block when (1) binding or (2) moving an event to a different VCPU.
Xen 4.4.x, when running on an ARM system and "handling an unknown system register access from 64-bit userspace," returns to an instruction of the trap handler for kernel space faults instead of an instruction that is associated with faults in 64-bit userspace, which allows local guest users to cause a denial of service (crash) and possibly gain privileges via a crafted process.
Xen 4.6.x, 4.5.x, 4.4.x, 4.3.x, and earlier do not initialize x86 FPU stack and XMM registers when XSAVE/XRSTOR are not used to manage guest extended register state, which allows local guest domains to obtain sensitive information from other domains via unspecified vectors.
The memoryexchange function in common/memory.c in Xen 3.2.x through 4.6.x does not properly release locks, which might allow guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (deadlock or host crash) via unspecified vectors, related to XENMEMexchange error handling.
The libxl toolstack library in Xen 4.1.x through 4.6.x does not properly release mappings of files used as kernels and initial ramdisks when managing multiple domains in the same process, which allows attackers to cause a denial of service (memory and disk consumption) by starting domains.
The memoryexchange function in common/memory.c in Xen 3.2.x through 4.6.x does not properly hand back pages to a domain, which might allow guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (host crash) via unspecified vectors related to domain teardown.
The (1) libxlsetmemorytarget function in tools/libxl/libxl.c and (2) libxlbuildpost function in tools/libxl/libxldom.c in Xen 3.4.x through 4.6.x do not properly calculate the balloon size when using the populate-on-demand (PoD) system, which allows local HVM guest users to cause a denial of service (guest crash) via unspecified vectors related to "heavy memory pressure."
Multiple memory leaks in Xen 4.0 through 4.6.x allow local guest administrators or domains with certain permission to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of "teardowns" of domains with the vcpu pointer array allocated using the (1) XENDOMCTLmaxvcpus hypercall or the xenoprofile state vcpu pointer array allocated using the (2) XENOPROFgetbuffer or (3) XENOPROFsetpassive hypercall.
Xen 3.2.x through 4.6.x does not limit the number of printk console messages when logging certain pmu and profiling hypercalls, which allows local guests to cause a denial of service via a sequence of crafted (1) HYPERCALLxenoprofop hypercalls, which are not properly handled in the doxenoprofop function in common/xenoprof.c, or (2) HYPERVISORxenpmuop hypercalls, which are not properly handled in the doxenpmuop function in arch/x86/cpu/vpmu.c.
The hypercallcreatecontinuation function in arch/arm/domain.c in Xen 4.4.x through 4.6.x allows local guest users to cause a denial of service (host crash) via a preemptible hypercall to the multicall interface.
The modl2entry function in arch/x86/mm.c in Xen 3.4 through 4.6.x does not properly validate level 2 page table entries, which allows local PV guest administrators to gain privileges via a crafted superpage mapping.
Xen 4.4.x, 4.5.x, and 4.6.x does not limit the number of printk console messages when reporting unimplemented hypercalls, which allows local guests to cause a denial of service via a sequence of (1) HYPERVISORphysdevop hypercalls, which are not properly handled in the dophysdevop function in arch/arm/physdev.c, or (2) HYPERVISORhvmop hypercalls, which are not properly handled in the dohvmop function in arch/arm/hvm.c.
libxl in Xen 4.1.x through 4.6.x does not properly handle the readonly flag on disks when using the qemu-xen device model, which allows local guest users to write to a read-only disk image.
It was found that a guest can DoS a host by triggering an infinite loop in microcode. If a guest in 32-bit mode enabled alignment exceptions, puts the exception handler in ring 3, and then triggers an alignment exception with an unaligned stack, then the microcode will enter an infinite loop. Because there's no instruction boundary the core never receives another interrupt (including SMIs). The host kernel panics pretty quickly due to the effects.
A privileged user inside guest could use this flaw to crash the host kernel resulting in DoS.
Upstream KVM patch: ------------------- -> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/2082329
References: ----------- -> http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/11/10/1
Xen 3.3.x through 4.5.x does not properly restrict access to PCI MSI mask bits, which allows local x86 HVM guest users to cause a denial of service (unexpected interrupt and host crash) via unspecified vectors.
GNTTABOPswapgrantref in Xen 4.2 through 4.5 does not check the grant table operation version, which allows local guest domains to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference) via a hypercall without a GNTTABOPsetuptable or GNTTABOPsetversion.
Xen 3.3.x through 4.5.x enables logging for PCI MSI-X pass-through error messages, which allows local x86 HVM guests to cause a denial of service (host disk consumption) via certain invalid operations.
The compatiret function in Xen 3.1 through 4.5 iterates the wrong way through a loop, which allows local 32-bit PV guest administrators to cause a denial of service (large loop and system hang) via a hypercalliret call with EFLAGS.VM set.
Xen 3.3.x through 4.5.x does not properly restrict write access to the host MSI message data field, which allows local x86 HVM guest administrators to cause a denial of service (host interrupt handling confusion) via vectors related to qemu and accessing spanning multiple fields.
Xen 4.2.x through 4.5.x does not initialize certain fields, which allows certain remote service domains to obtain sensitive information from memory via a (1) XENDOMCTLgettscinfo or (2) XENSYSCTLgetdomaininfolist request.
Stack-based buffer overflow in the xl command line utility in Xen 4.1.x through 4.5.x allows local guest administrators to gain privileges via a long configuration argument.