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On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 07:05:40AM -0700, je wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Intel GVT-g is Intels mediated pass-through technology for graphics
> virtualization. Mediated pass-through allows to share a graphics card with
> multiple guests [1]. Intel GVT-g was formerly known as XenGT. However,
> GVT-g was added to the mainline kernel 4.10 [2] and have since seen
> improvements [3].
>
> Are there any plans to support GVT-g in upcoming Qubes OS releases? Did you
> do any experiments with GVT-g and QubesOS?
Currently not. While this may look very attractive, it also have a huge
attack surface - especially the mediating part running in device model.
There are at least two things to be concerned about:
- exploiting some bug there to break out into dom0,
- exploiting some bug there to steal/subvert data of other VM using the
same GPU
The first one could be somehow mitigated by sandboxing it in a separate
VM - like we do with qemu for HVM domains. But it wouldn't prevent the
second kind of attack, which is especially severe if you have only one
GPU.
This also require a lot of research what other parts of the system could
be affected by such a complex feature.
This all doesn't mean we will never add such a feature - using this
technology, or some other future one. But probably it will not be
enabled by default. And surely it will not be in the near future - since
our resources are limited, we focus on things improving security of
Qubes OS, not loosening it.
> If you did not do any experiments with GVT-g and QubesOS, than I would
> really like to see a GSoC project which evaluates the Intel GVT-g
> technology in Qubes OS. Because Intel GVT-g could be maybe used to enable
> Android and WebGL development in Qubes OS. Furthermore, proper GPU
> acceleration support could improve or enable many use cases which require
> GPU acceleration.
Well, this indeed may be a good candidate for GSoC project. I'm somehow
sceptical if this as a whole could be framed as such (IMO it's much more
than 3 months of work), but some parts probably yes. Anyway for this is
for the next year - deadline for projects submission for this year
already have passed.
- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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