Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH V8 08/14] Introduce file lock for the block layer

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 10:25:08AM -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
> On 09/07/2011 10:10 AM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> >On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 09:56:52AM -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
> >>On 09/07/2011 09:16 AM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> >>>On Wed, Sep 07, 2011 at 09:06:05AM -0400, Stefan Berger wrote:
> >>>>>>First: There are two ways to encrypt the data.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>One comes with the QCoW2 type of image and it comes for free. Set
> >>>>>>the encryption flag when creating the QCoW2 file and one has to
> >>>>>>provide a key to access the QCoW2. I found this mode problematic for
> >>>>>>users since it required me to go through the monitor every time I
> >>>>>>started the VM. Besides that the key is provided so late that all
> >>>>>>devices are already initialized and if the wrong key was provided
> >>>>>>the only thing the TPM can do is to go into shutdown mode since
> >>>>>>there is state on the QCoW2 but it cannot be decrypted. This also
> >>>>>>became problematic when doing migrations with libvirt for example
> >>>>>>and one was to have a wrong key/password installed on the target
> >>>>>>side -- graceful termination of the migration is impossible.
> >>>OK let's go back to this for a moment. Add a load
> >>>callback, access file there. On failure, return
> >>>an error. migration fails gracefully, and
> >>>management can retry, or migrate to another node,
> >>>or whatever.
> >>>
> >>>What's the problem exactly?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>The switch-over from source to destination already happened when the
> >>key is finally passed and you just won't be able to access the QCoW2
> >>in case the key was wrong.
> >This is exactly what happens with any kind of othe rmigration errror.
> >So fail migration, and source can get restarted if necessary.
> >
> I guess I wanted to improve on this and catch user errors.
> If we let migration fail then all you can do is try to terminate the
> VM on the destination and cold-start on the source.

No, normally if migration fails VM is not started on destination,
and it can just continue on source.

> >>Similar problems occur when you start a
> >>VM with an encrypted QCoW2 image. The monitor will prompt you for
> >>the password and then you start the VM and if the password was wrong
> >>the OS just won't be able to access the image.
> >>
> >>    Stefan
> >Why can't you verify the password?
> >
> I do verify the key/password in the TPM driver. If the driver cannot
> make sense of the contents of the QCoW2 due to wrong key I simply
> put the driver into failure mode. That's all I can do with encrypted
> QCoW2.

You can return error from init script which will make qemu exit.

> In case of a QCoW2 encrypted VM image it's different. There I guess
> the intelligence of what is good and bad data is only inside the OS.
> 
>    Stefan