[v6,09/13] confidential guest support: Update documentation

Commit Message

David Gibson Jan. 12, 2021, 4:45 a.m. UTC

Now that we've implemented a generic machine option for configuring various
confidential guest support mechanisms:
  1. Update docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt to reference this rather than
     the earlier SEV specific option
  2. Add a docs/confidential-guest-support.txt to cover the generalities of
     the confidential guest support scheme

Signed-off-by: David Gibson <[e-mail]>
---
 docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt      |  2 +-
 docs/confidential-guest-support.txt | 43 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 44 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 docs/confidential-guest-support.txt

Patch

diff --git a/docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt b/docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt
index 80b8eb00e9..145896aec7 100644
--- a/docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt
+++ b/docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@  complete flow chart.
 To launch a SEV guest
 
 # ${QEMU} \
-    -machine ...,memory-encryption=sev0 \
+    -machine ...,confidential-guest-support=sev0 \
     -object sev-guest,id=sev0,cbitpos=47,reduced-phys-bits=1
 
 Debugging
diff --git a/docs/confidential-guest-support.txt b/docs/confidential-guest-support.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2790425b38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/confidential-guest-support.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ 
+Confidential Guest Support
+==========================
+
+Traditionally, hypervisors such as qemu have complete access to a
+guest's memory and other state, meaning that a compromised hypervisor
+can compromise any of its guests.  A number of platforms have added
+mechanisms in hardware and/or firmware which give guests at least some
+protection from a compromised hypervisor.  This is obviously
+especially desirable for public cloud environments.
+
+These mechanisms have different names and different modes of
+operation, but are often referred to as Secure Guests or Confidential
+Guests.  We use the term "Confidential Guest Support" to distinguish
+this from other aspects of guest security (such as security against
+attacks from other guests, or from network sources).
+
+Running a Confidential Guest
+----------------------------
+
+To run a confidential guest you need to add two command line parameters:
+
+1. Use "-object" to create a "confidential guest support" object.  The
+   type and parameters will vary with the specific mechanism to be
+   used
+2. Set the "confidential-guest-support" machine parameter to the ID of
+   the object from (1).
+
+Example (for AMD SEV)::
+
+    qemu-system-x86_64 \
+        <other parameters> \
+        -machine ...,confidential-guest-support=sev0 \
+        -object sev-guest,id=sev0,cbitpos=47,reduced-phys-bits=1
+
+Supported mechanisms
+--------------------
+
+Currently supported confidential guest mechanisms are:
+
+AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV)
+    docs/amd-memory-encryption.txt
+
+Other mechanisms may be supported in future.