Is it possible to get trusted performance counter?

Hang Yin

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Dec 1, 2021, 6:29:17 AM12/1/21

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Hi Gramine users,

I'm looking for solutions to measure the execution time of the program inside the enclave in a trusted way for resource accounting, because we don't want to trust the system admin.

It's easy to check the performance counters or the wall time in the untrusted world, but I'm wondering if we can get the trusted measurements when we don't trust users. I noticed the sgx profiling section in the docs. Can it be attested, or is it still the metrics from the OS?

Thanks for your advice.

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Hang Yin

Michał Kowalczyk

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Dec 5, 2021, 1:28:25 PM12/5/21

to Hang Yin, us...@gramineproject.io

Hi,

As far as I know it's not possible, at least not directly. There was some paper about in-enclave time accounting, but I don't remember its name and it didn't seem practical to me. Maybe just estimate the resources based on the workload size/complexity sent?

Best,
Michał

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Vij, Mona

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Dec 5, 2021, 2:41:03 PM12/5/21

to Kowalczyk, Michal, Hang Yin, us...@gramineproject.io

You can use perf counters for profiling and debugging with vtune. No good solution for trusted time. With the latest gen hardware you can call RDTSC instruction directly inside an enclave, but OS/VMM still control the offset and scaling, so it can’t be trusted.

There are some academic papers on some software solutions that use a busy look inside an enclave to measure the execution time and protect that thread using TSX. You can find the paper at Déjà vu paper at http://web.cse.ohio-state.edu/~zhang.5840/assets/AsiaCCS2017/asia318-chen.pdf

Thanks

Mona

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Hang Yin

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Dec 17, 2021, 7:02:07 AM12/17/21

to Vij, Mona, Kowalczyk, Michal, us...@gramineproject.io

Cool, thanks! I'm going to read the paper.

It looks like we have to look into software instrumentation instead. We have seen some interesting tools like Intel's PinTool as a x86 to x86 jit that offers some capability to do dynamic code analysis and trace. I haven't taken a close look. Do you think it's something viable?

Best,

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Hang Yin

尹航

Co-founder, Lead Developer

Phala Network | https://phala.network

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