LFNW2014 Advanced Security Features of Xen Project Hypervisor
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The document discusses the advanced security features of the Xen Project hypervisor, aimed at enhancing cloud security. It outlines the architecture of the hypervisor, various security features like driver domains, pvgrub, and stub domains, and strategies for mitigating attack surfaces. Additionally, the presentation emphasizes the importance of security by design, advocating for a comprehensive and proactive approach to securing cloud environments.
![Basic How To: Driver Domains
● Configure the guest Virtual Network Interface (vif) to
use the new domain ID
– Add “backend=domnet” to vif declaration
vif = [ 'type=pv, bridge=xenbr0, backend=domnet' ]
Detailed Info
http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Driver_Domain](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lfnw2014-advancedsecurityfeaturesofxenproject-140427064519-phpapp02/85/LFNW2014-Advanced-Security-Features-of-Xen-Project-Hypervisor-31-320.jpg)
![Basic HowTo: FLASK Example Policy
● Build Xen Project software with XSM enabled
● Build the example policy
● Add the appropriate label to guest config files:
– “seclabel=[foo]”
– “stubdom_label=[foo]”
http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Security_Modules_:_XSM-FLASK
Detailed Info](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lfnw2014-advancedsecurityfeaturesofxenproject-140427064519-phpapp02/85/LFNW2014-Advanced-Security-Features-of-Xen-Project-Hypervisor-57-320.jpg)
LFNW2014 Advanced Security Features of Xen Project Hypervisor
- 1. Advanced Security Features of the Xen Project Hypervisor Russell Pavlicek Xen Project Evangelist Citrix Systems
- 2. Who is the Old, Fat Geek Up Front? ● Xen Project Evangelist (I have a big mouth...) ● Employed by Citrix, focused entirely on Xen project ● History with open source begins in 1995 ● Former columnist for Infoworld, Processor magazines ● Former panelist on The Linux Show, speaker at over 50 Open Source conferences ● Over 150 pieces published, one book on open source, plus blogs
- 3. Presentation Goals ● Introduce the subject of security in the Cloud ● Introduce you to the Xen Project Security Tools ● Discuss some key Xen Project security features ● Get you started in the right direction toward securing your Xen Project Hypervisor installation
- 4. Presentation Outline ● A few thoughts on the problem of securing the Cloud ● Overview of the Xen Project architecture ● Brief introduction to the principles of security analysis ● Examine some of the attack surfaces and the Xen Project features we can use to mitigate them: – Driver Domains – PVgrub – Stub Domains – Paravirtualization (PV) versus Hardware Virtualization (HVM) – FLASK example policy
- 5. Introduction: Xen Project, The Cloud, and Security
- 6. Introduction: Xen Project and Security ● Xen Project produces an enterprise-grade Type 1 hypervisor ● Built for the cloud before it was called cloud ● A number of advanced security features – Driver domains, stub domains, FLASK, and more – Most of them are not (or cannot) be turned on by default – Although they can be simple to use, sometimes they appear complicated
- 7. The Cloud Security Conundrum ● Cloud Security: The 800lb Gorilla in the room – Nothing generates more fear in specific, and FUD in general – Probably the single greatest barrier to Cloud adoption ● Immediately behind it is the inability to get out of the 20th century IT mindset – Must get past the “Change is Bad” concept of 1980 – Cloud is about embracing change at a rapid pace – The good news: the “Gorilla” is actually a “Red Herring” ● We don't need to fear it – we just need to solve it
- 8. Cloud Security: New Visibility to an Old Problem ● Security has always been an IT issue ● Putting a truly secure system in the open does not reduce its security, it just increases the frequency of attack ● Unfortunately, system security behind the firewall has not always been comprehensive ● Having solutions in an external cloud forces us to solve the security issues we should have already solved News Flash: Security Through Obscurity is Dead
- 9. Use Security by Design, Not by Wishful Thinking ● Security by wishful thinking no longer works – Merely hoping that your firewall holds off the marauding hordes is NOT good enough – Addressing security in one area while ignoring others is NOT good enough – Saying, “We never had a problem before” is NOT good enough ● Comprehensive security starts with design – It needs to be planned carefully and thought through – It needs to be implemented at multiple levels – It needs components which are themselves securable
- 10. Xen Project: Security by Design ● Xen Project software was designed for clouds before the term “cloud” was ever coined in the industry – Designers foresaw the day of “infrastructure for wide- area distributed computing” which we now call “the cloud” – http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research//srg/netos/xeno/publ ications.html ● The hypervisor is designed to thwart attacks from many attack vectors, using different defensive techniques
- 11. Basic Architecture of the Xen Project Hypervisor
- 12. Hypervisor Architectures Type 1: Bare metal Hypervisor A pure Hypervisor that runs directly on the hardware and hosts Guest OS’s. Provides partition isolation + reliability, higher security Provides partition isolation + reliability, higher security Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O HypervisorHypervisor SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU Device Drivers/ Models Device Drivers/ Models VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps
- 13. Hypervisor Architectures Type 1: Bare metal Hypervisor A pure Hypervisor that runs directly on the hardware and hosts Guest OS’s. Type 2: OS ‘Hosted’ A Hypervisor that runs within a Host OS and hosts Guest OS’s inside of it, using the host OS services to provide the virtual environment. Provides partition isolation + reliability, higher security Provides partition isolation + reliability, higher security Low cost, no additional drivers Ease of use and installation Low cost, no additional drivers Ease of use and installation Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O HypervisorHypervisor SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU Device Drivers/ Models Device Drivers/ Models VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps Host OSHost OS Device DriversDevice Drivers Ring-0 VM Monitor “Kernel “ Ring-0 VM Monitor “Kernel “ VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps User Apps User Apps User-level VMMUser-level VMM Device ModelsDevice Models
- 14. Xen Project: Type 1 with a Twist Type 1: Bare metal Hypervisor VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O HypervisorHypervisor SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU Device Drivers/ Models Device Drivers/ Models
- 15. Xen Project: Type 1 with a Twist VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O HypervisorHypervisor SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU Device Drivers/ Models Device Drivers/ Models Type 1: Bare metal Hypervisor VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU XEN Architecture
- 16. Xen Project: Type 1 with a Twist VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O HypervisorHypervisor SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU Device Drivers/ Models Device Drivers/ Models Type 1: Bare metal Hypervisor VMn VMn VM1 VM1 VM0 VM0 Guest OS and Apps Guest OS and Apps Host HWHost HW Memory CPUsI/O SchedulerScheduler MMUMMU XEN Architecture Control domain (dom0) Control domain (dom0) DriversDrivers Device ModelsDevice Models Linux & BSDLinux & BSD
- 17. Xen Project Architecture: Basic Parts
- 18. Security Thinking: An Approach
- 19. An Approach to Security Thinking ● Threat models: – Attacker can access network – Attacker controls one Guest VM ● Security considerations to evaluate: – How much code is accessible? – What is the interface like? (e.g., pointers vs scalars) – Defense-in-depth: how many rings of defense surround you? ● Then combine security tactics to secure the installation – There is no single "magic bullet" – Individual tactics reduce danger; combined tactics go farther
- 20. Example System For This Discussion ● Hardware setup – Two networks: one Control network, one Guest network – IOMMU with interrupt remapping (AMD or Intel VT-d v2) to allow for full hardware virtualization (HVM) ● Default configuration – Network drivers in the Control Domain (aka "Domain 0" or just "Dom0") – Paravirtualized (PV) guests using PyGrub (grub-like boot utility within context of Guest Domain) – Hardware Virtualized (HVM) guests using Qemu (as the device model) running in the Control Domain
- 21. Attacking the Network Interface
- 22. Attack Surface: Network Path
- 23. Attack Surface: Network Path ● Where might an exploit focus? – Bugs in hardware driver – Bugs in bridging / filtering – Bugs in netback (via the ring protocol) ● Netback and Netfront are part of the Paravirtualization mode ● Note the exploits – The main exploits exist already, even in hardware – The netback surface is very small, but needs to be acknowledged – When these are attacked in hardware, you have deep trouble – You actually have better defense in the VM than in hardware
- 24. Result: Network Path Compromised
- 25. Result: Network Path Compromised This could lead to the control of the whole system Vulnerability Analysis: What could a successful exploit yield? Control of Domain 0 kernel
- 26. Security Feature: Driver Domains
- 27. Security Feature: Driver Domains ● What is a Driver Domain? – Unprivileged VM which drives hardware – It provides driver access to guest VMs – Very limited scope; not a full operating system – Does not have the access or capability of a full VM
- 28. Result: Driver Domain Compromised
- 29. Result: Driver Domain Compromised ● Now a successful exploit could yield: – Control of the Driver Domain (Paravirtualization hypercall interface) ● But the Driver Domain is limited: no shell, no utilities – Control of that guest's network traffic ● But in the cloud, most orchestrators detect network traffic failure ● The problem is not allowed to stand very long – Control of the network interface card (NIC) – An opportunity to attack the netfront of other guest VMs ● But to take advantage of this platform, you need to launch another attack ● Compound attacks are complex, and they take time which you may not have
- 30. Basic How To: Driver Domains ● Create a VM with appropriate drivers – Use any distribution suitable as a Control Domain ● Install the Xen Project hotplug scripts – Just installing the Xen Project tools in the VM is usually good enough ● Give the VM access to the physical NIC with PCI passthrough ● Configure the network topology in the Driver Domain – Just like you would for the Control Domain
- 31. Basic How To: Driver Domains ● Configure the guest Virtual Network Interface (vif) to use the new domain ID – Add “backend=domnet” to vif declaration vif = [ 'type=pv, bridge=xenbr0, backend=domnet' ] Detailed Info http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Driver_Domain
- 32. Attacking the PyGrub Boot Loader
- 34. Attack Surface: PyGrub ● What is PyGrub? – “grub” implementation for Paravirtualized guests – A Python program running in Control Domain ● What does it do? – It reads the guest VM's filesystem – It parses grub.conf – It displays a boot menu to the user – It passes the selected kernel image to domain builder
- 36. Attack Surface: PyGrub ● Where might an exploit focus? – Bugs in file system parser – Bugs in menu parser – Bugs in domain builder ● Again, note the exploits – Forms of these exist in hardware as well – But hardware doesn't have as many options to combat the situation
- 38. Result: PyGrub Compromised This could lead to the control of the whole system Vulnerability Analysis: What could a successful exploit yield? Control of Domain 0 user space
- 39. Security Feature: Fixed Kernels
- 40. Security Feature: Fixed Kernels ● What is a fixed kernel? – Passing a known-good kernel from Control Domain ● No longer allows a user to choose the kernel ● Best practice for anything in production – Removes attacker avenue to domain builder ● Disadvantages – Host administrator must keep up with kernel updates – Guest admin can't pass kernel parameters or custom kernels
- 42. Security Feature: PVgrub ● What is PVgrub? – MiniOS plus the Paravirtualized port of “grub” running in a guest context – Paravirtualized equivalent of Hardware Virtualized combination of BIOS plus grub
- 43. Result: PVgrub Compromised Control Domain is no longer at risk Vulnerability Analysis: Now a successful exploit could yield: Control of the attacked Guest Domain alone
- 44. Basic HowTo: PVgrub ● Make sure that you have the PVgrub image – “pvgrub-$ARCH.gz” – Normally lives in “/usr/lib/xen/boot” – Debian, SLES: Currently need to build for yourself – Included in Fedora Xen Project packages ● Use appropriate PVgrub as bootloader in guest configuration: – kernel="/usr/lib/xen/boot/pvgrub-x86_32.gz" See http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Pvgrub
- 45. Attacking the Qemu Device Model
- 46. Attack Surface: Device Model (Qemu)
- 47. Attack Surface: Device Model (Qemu) ● What is Qemu? – In other contexts, a virtualization provider – In the Xen Project context, a provider of needed device models ● Where might an exploit focus? – Bugs in NIC emulator parsing packets – Bugs in emulation of virtual devices
- 48. Result: Device Model Compromised This could lead to the control of the whole system Vulnerability Analysis: What could a successful exploit yield? Control Domain privileged user space
- 49. Security Feature: Qemu Stub Domains ● What is a stub domain? – Stub domain: a small “service'' domain running just one application – Qemu stub domain: run each Qemu in its own domain
- 50. Result: Stub Domain Compromised You need to devise another attack entirely to do anything more significant Vulnerability Analysis: Now a successful exploit could yield: Control only of the stub domain VM (which, if FLASK is employed, is a relatively small universe)
- 51. Basic HowTo: Qemu Stub Domains ● Make sure that you have the ioemu image: – “ioemu-$ARCH.gz” – Normally lives in “/usr/lib/xen/boot” – SUSE SLES, currently need to build it yourself (SLES 12?) – Included in Fedora Xen Project packages – On Debian (and offshoots), you will need to build it yourself ● Specify stub domains in your guest configuration: device_model_stubdomain_override = 1 http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Device_Model_Stub_Domains Detailed Info
- 52. Attacking the Hypervisor Itself
- 53. Attack Surface: The Hypervisor Itself ● Where might an exploit focus? – On Paravirtualized (PV) Guests: ● PV Hypercalls – On full Hardware Virtualized (HVM) Guests: ● HVM hypercalls (Subset of PV hypercalls) ● Instruction emulation (MMIO, shadow pagetables) ● Emulated platform devices: APIC, HPET, PIT ● Nested virtualization ● Security practice: Use PV VMs whenever possible
- 54. Using the Xen Project Security Module
- 55. Security Feature: FLASK Policy ● What is FLASK? – Xen Project Security Module (XSM): Xen Project equivalent of LSM – FLASK: FLux Advanced Security Kernel – Framework for XSM developed by NSA – Xen Project equivalent of SELinux – Uses same concepts and tools as SELinux – Allows a policy to restrict hypercalls
- 56. Security Feature: FLASK Policy ● What can FLASK do? – Basic: Restricts hypercalls to those needed by a particular guest – Advanced: Allows more fine-grained granting of privileges ● FLASK example policy – This contains example roles for the Control Domain (dom0), User/Guest Domain(domU), stub domains, driver domains, etc. – Make sure you TEST the example policy in your environment BEFORE putting it into production! NOTE: As an example policy, it is not as rigorously tested as other parts of Xen during release; make sure it is suitable for you
- 57. Basic HowTo: FLASK Example Policy ● Build Xen Project software with XSM enabled ● Build the example policy ● Add the appropriate label to guest config files: – “seclabel=[foo]” – “stubdom_label=[foo]” http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Security_Modules_:_XSM-FLASK Detailed Info
- 59. ARM SOCARM SOC Xen Project + ARM = A Perfect Match ARM Architecture Features for VirtualizationARM Architecture Features for Virtualization Hypervisor mode : EL2 Kernel mode : EL1 User mode : EL0 GIC v2 GIC v2GTGT 2 stage MMU 2 stage MMU I/O Device Tree describes … Hypercall Interface HVCHypercall Interface HVC
- 60. ARM SOCARM SOC ARM Architecture Features for VirtualizationARM Architecture Features for Virtualization EL2 EL1 EL0 GIC v2 GIC v2GTGT 2 stage MMU 2 stage MMU I/O Device Tree describes … HVCHVC Xen Project + ARM = A Perfect Match Xen Project HypervisorXen Project Hypervisor
- 61. ARM SOCARM SOC ARM Architecture Features for VirtualizationARM Architecture Features for Virtualization EL2 EL1 EL0 GIC v2 GIC v2GTGT 2 stage MMU 2 stage MMU I/O Device Tree describes … HVCHVC Xen Project + ARM = A Perfect Match Xen Project HypervisorXen Project Hypervisor Any Xen Project Guest VM (including Dom0)Any Xen Project Guest VM (including Dom0) KernelKernel User SpaceUser Space HVCHVC
- 62. ARM SOCARM SOC ARM Architecture Features for VirtualizationARM Architecture Features for Virtualization EL2 EL1 EL0 GIC v2 GIC v2GTGT 2 stage MMU 2 stage MMU I/O Device Tree describes … HVCHVC Xen Project + ARM = A Perfect Match Xen Project HypervisorXen Project Hypervisor Dom0 only Dom0 only Any Xen Project Guest VM (including Dom0)Any Xen Project Guest VM (including Dom0) KernelKernel User SpaceUser Space I/O PV back PV frontI/O HVCHVC
- 63. ARM: Right Solution for Security ● Stays in ARM Hypervisor Mode – The ARM architecture has separate Hypervisor and Kernel modes – Because Xen Project's architecture maps so well to the ARM architecture, the hypervisor never has to use Kernel mode – Other hypervisors have to flip back and forth between modes – If a hypervisor has to enter Kernel mode, it loses the security of running in a privileged mode, isolated from the rest of the system – This is a non-issue with the Xen Project Hypervisor on ARM ● Does not need to use device emulation – No emulation means a smaller attack surface for bad guys
- 64. Xen Project Events Coming Up ● Xen Project User Summit – September 15, 2014 in New York City – Call For Participation closes May 31 http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-user-summit/program/cfp ● Xen Project Developer Summit – August 18-19, 2014 in Chicago at LinuxCon NA – Call For Participation closes May 2 http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit
- 65. For More Information... Thanks to George Dunlap for supplying much of the information presented here, and Stefano Stabellini for ARM information Center of the Xen Project universe: http://www.XenProject.org/ Contact me at russell.pavlicek@xenproject.org Detailed Info http://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Securing_Xen Thank You!