Why does the firmware memory region have no permissions? | opensbi

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+Heinrich

-----Original Message-----
From: Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist) <redacted>
Sent: 03 June 2021 20:05
To: Anup Patel <redacted>; Daniel Schaefer
[off-list ref]
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: Anup Patel [mailto:Anup.Patel at wdc.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 11:15 PM
To: Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist) <redacted>;
Daniel Schaefer [off-list ref]
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist) <redacted>
Sent: 02 June 2021 20:19
To: Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist) <redacted>;
Anup
Patel [off-list ref]; Daniel Schaefer
[off-list ref]
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: opensbi [mailto:opensbi-bounces at lists.infradead.org] On
Behalf Of Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist)
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 11:30 PM
To: Anup Patel <redacted>; Daniel Schaefer
[off-list ref]
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no
permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: Anup Patel [mailto:Anup.Patel at wdc.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 4:09 PM
To: Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist)
[off-list ref];
Daniel
Schaefer [off-list ref]
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no
permissions?
Hi Abner,

-----Original Message-----
From: Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW Technologist)
[off-list ref]
Sent: 15 May 2021 11:47
To: Anup Patel <redacted>; Daniel Schaefer
[off-list ref]
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no
permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: Anup Patel [mailto:Anup.Patel at wdc.com]
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2021 7:58 PM
To: Daniel Schaefer <redacted>
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org; Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW
Technologist)
[off-list ref]
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no
permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: Anup Patel
Sent: 14 May 2021 17:22
To: Daniel Schaefer <redacted>
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org; Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW
Technologist) [off-list ref]
Subject: RE: Why does the firmware memory region have no
permissions?

-----Original Message-----
From: opensbi <redacted> On
Behalf
Of
Daniel Schaefer
Sent: 13 May 2021 10:26
To: Anup Patel <redacted>
Cc: opensbi at lists.infradead.org; Chang, Abner (HPS SW/FW
Technologist) [off-list ref]
Subject: Why does the firmware memory region have no
permissions?
Whoops, put CC as subject...

On 5/12/21 6:20 PM, Daniel Schaefer wrote:
Hi Anup,

I'm in the process of upgrading EDKII to OpenSBI 0.9
and using the Generic
Platform.
Previously we were doing sbi_init with M-Mode, adding
our SBI extension and then calling sbi_switch_mode to
switch to S-
Mode.
Now sbi_init disallows initializing to M-Mode, so I'm
directly switching to S-Mode. It seems that even from
S-Mode I can register our SBI
extension with sbi_ecall_register_extension.
Is that correct?
The OpenSBI sources are meant to run only from M-mode so
we
cannot
register SBI extension using sbi_ecall_register_extension().

The  sbi_switch_mode() is not stricter due to OpenSBI
domain
support.
The sbi_hart_switch_mode() is fine. It's the
sbi_domain_init() which is enforcing next booting stage to
be at lower privilege for
root
domain.
For time being, you can try removing checks on "dom-
next_mode"
in sanitize_domain()
Hi Anup, I think we currently skip that check for moving on
the
edk2 boot process. So do you have plan to remove this check?
Or any
alternative?
I think it is unnecessary having this check on the next privilege
mode.
That
should be at OEM discretion of which privilege mode to run
their next firmware stage based on the platform design?
This is an important check required by OpenSBI domain support so
that next booting stage cannot tamper with PMP configuration
(and other security configuration) done by OpenSBI.
I understand the importance of not giving any chance to tamper PMP
setting, however this could be the responsibility of the next boot
phase
before OS.
OpenSBI as the early phase boot firmware should be generally
provide SBIs to platform variants, and have the flexibility to
hand off to either M-mode or S-mode firmware (Actually I don't
think OpenSBI
should
handle this).
Platform code is provided by OEM/vendor, OpenSBI should allow it
if platform code says I would like to run my next phase firmware
in M-
mode.
We restrict the privilege phase for the next phase in OpenSBI also
not compliant with the UEFI spec which says UEFI RISC-V firmware
could be executed in either M-mode or S-mode. Some EFI driver may
be loaded in
S- mode but provide the M-mode code such as management mode, the
Platform Runtime Mechanism or some other use cases. The next
firmware
has the responsibility to switch to S-mode when handoff to OS or
software if the platform design requires that (I remember we have
the simi  lar sentence in riscv-platform-spec). EDK2 code can't
just remove the check "dom->next_mode", we use OpenSBI without any
changes.

I am still worried about the custom SBI extension required by EDK2.
This will not work when running EDK2 inside Guest/VM because
Guest/VM boots in VS-mode and the SBI calls are provided by
hypervisors (KVM, Xvisor, etc). I think you should revisit EDK2
boot-flow to make it compatible with virtualization and OpenSBI
domains.
Ok, I will revisit this. Thanks for the reminder.
Hi Anup,
I have few questions regard to HSM support in opensbi,

- Is the purpose of invoking platform_domain_init at the end of
sbi_init() to let platform code to register the domains through
sbi_domain_register()?
Yes, domains need to be populated as late as possible so that domains
are switched only after all initialization is completed.

- What is the reason that each domain is requested to have the
memory region of ROOT_FW_REGION?
The ROOT_FW_REGION protects the firmware itself. The fw_region is
based on fw_start and fw_size members of the "struct sbi_scratch".

- I think opensbi will have the implement of switching the next mode
to
HSM
later?
Can you elaborate why you need this ?
Ah no I was just wonder how opensbi switch the next mode to HSM. You had
the answer in below.

- How does opensbi loads the hypervisor in HSM?
When H-extension is available the next mode is automatically HS-mode
(i.e. S-mode with virt=off).

You still did not share how you will make EDK2 boot flow work for
VS-modes because hypervisor will start Guest/VM directly in VS-mode
and M-mode components of EDK2 can't run inside Guest/VM
I don't have the full picture of EDK2 boot flow for HSM yet. I am still thinking
how the Management Mode work on HSM especially to the multiple type1
HS-mode and VS-mode are both S-mode with differing capabilities. A software
written for S-mode (without using H-extension CSRs) should run unmodified
in both HS-mode and VS-mode.

hypervisors run on the each domain. Also, the platform errors or RAS errors
on server platform has to deliver the error event to the corresponding
This headache of hypervisor so hypervisor will use appropriate HW features
to virtualize RAS events/errors.

domains. The idea as I mentioned earlier, EDK2 FW is not necessarily  to be
I totally disagree. In ARM64 world, people use EDK2 inside Guest/VM so
why can't we do the same in RISC-V world.

Same distros which run natively without hypervisor will expect to run in
the same way inside Guest/VM. Are you suggesting that EDK2 will not
be available to distros inside Guest/VM ??

executed as a VS entity. EDK2 FW is executed when processor power on and it
uses opensbi as a library to initial the basic platform (vendor) and opensbi
initialization, then edk2 FW run through PEI/DXE for the OEM platform and
proprietary features initialization. EDK2 still can jump to opensbi to run the
domain initialization at the last boot stage, says BDS,  and then switch to
HSM. We have to consider those server features such as critical platform error
handling, event logging, FW<->BMC communication, Remote FW
configuration through Redfish beyond the HSM, or some of above drivers can
run in HSM before hypervisor is launched, I am not sure yet.
If other architectures are able to use EDK2 inside Guest/VM then I don't
see why we can't do the same for RISC-V. 

SBI FW extension shouldn't be the problem because HSM hypervisor can still
bypass the sbi invocations from VS entity to M-mode if the sbi function
number is in the firmware range, right? e.g. SBI FW extension can still provide
the management mode interface to (V)S mode entity.
Bypassing SBI FW calls from VS-mode to M-mode will have it's own issues
and I am reluctant to go this direction without fully understanding why
EDK2 needs SBI FW calls.

The fact that you need to depend on SBI FW extension seems to be becoming
a road block for EDK2 inside Guest/VM.

Regards,
Anup

Abner

Regards,
Anup

Regards,
Abner

Regards,
Abner
Regards,
Anup

Thanks and regards,
Abner

Next booting stage has to run from lower privilege mode
(S-mode or
U-
mode) otherwise OpenSBI cannot protect itself from next
booting stage if it starts in M-mode.

However, sbi_init when directly initializing to S-Mode
checks that the
start_address is executable.
So I'm wondering why the FW region isn't set as
executable in
OpenSBI?
How do other FWs like U-Boot get around this?

https://github.com/riscv/opensbi/commit/b1678af210dc4b4e6d586d6d966
1
7
e
9641618994#diff-
6e8e352a8a90ba5a7adbb58a806ed9b6404c2c67db416332f9c05a
6b322eecd6R346

If I try to set my own regions by adding
.domains_root_regions I get another error because
OpenSBI checks that I have a region that is the same
as the FW region added by OpenSBI. If I duplicate the
FW region and mark the first one as executable I can
pass the executable check and also the check that
there's an
FW
region.
Additionally we have to manually call pmp_set in our
custom platform to make the FW region RWX.

That seems like a workaround, however. Do you have any
suggestion to
properly fix it?
I'm sure we're misunderstand something.
I suggest two things:
1) Register your custom SBI extension from M-mode only
before switching to S-mode
2) Make sure that fw_start and fw_size set in the
sbi_scratch for each HART only point to the M-mode code and
data.
Preferably have S-mode code and data not linked in the
same binary as M-mode code
and
data.

For context: We're writing the start addr and size of
our FW image into the scratch space before OpenSBI is
initialized.
Therefore we're expecting it to set the PMP settings
correctly.
Please check out my workaround commit:
https://github.com/riscv/riscv-edk2-
platforms/commit/a5ac63096ca
5da7
95
042baf650170643fe219cab

Thanks,
Daniel
Regards
Anup
Regards,
Anup
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