[U-Boot] [RFC] efi_loader: EFI variables

[Daniel Thompson]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 12:34:29PM +0100, Heinrich Schuchardt wrote:
> On 2/12/19 10:49 AM, Alexander Graf wrote:
> > On 02/03/2019 07:32 PM, Heinrich Schuchardt wrote:
> >> Hello Alex, hello Takahiro,
> >>
> >> this morning I met Daniel Thompson of Linaro. He thinks it would be
> >> quite valuable if U-Boot would at least offer read access to EFI
> >> variables at runtime.
> >>
> >> I think what it takes is only a RAM buffer that we put between our
> >> current storage backend (i.e. synchronization with U-Boot variables)
> >> and the API implementation.
> >>
> >> We will need such a buffer anyway for non-permanent variables once we
> >> have a SPI flash storage.
> > 
> > I think slowly we need to take a critical design decision: Do we want to
> > be in the business of managing runtime UEFI variables?
> > 
> > I don't have a fully cohesive answer to that yet. My gut feeling tells
> > me, that runtime variables would be much better off if they lived in
> > TrustZone. That way we don't have to play relocation tricks, and devices
> > that give you persistency are owned by the secure world anyway, so there
> > is no weird intersection between OS and RTS.
> > 
> > So maybe the path forward would be to implement variable services in ATF
> > (or OP-TEE rather I suppose) and just provide shim stubs to communicate
> > with them from runtime services? That would keep all the variable logic
> > platform agnostic, and we would not have to jump through weird hoops
> > with DM.
> 
> U-Boot' major asset are the many boards supported by drivers. Does ATF
> or OP-TEE have drivers for SPI?

Some ports have SPI drivers and AFAIK it is only really there to
facilitate smartcard communications. I'm not aware of any SPI flash
storage hooked up to the driver.


> Or is your idea that U-Boot would provide a module that is set up as a
> trusted driver or trusted app, cf.
> https://developer.arm.com/-/media/developer/Block%20Diagrams/Architecture-of-TEE%20copy.png

OP-TEE has two implementations of secure storage at present: REE (rich
OS) filesystem and eMMC RPMB.

Things will get very circular when the secure storage is the REE
filesystem because it is not available to OP-TEE until the REE has
booted and started the supplicant. That means u-boot would have to
provide a lot of supplicant infrastructure in order to read from the
variable store.


Daniel.