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Xen Security Advisory 360 v1 - IRQ vector leak on x86
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Xen Security Advisory XSA-360

IRQ vector leak on x86

ISSUE DESCRIPTION
=================

A x86 HVM guest with PCI pass through devices can force the allocation
of all IDT vectors on the system by rebooting itself with MSI or MSI-X
capabilities enabled and entries setup.

Such reboots will leak any vectors used by the MSI(-X) entries that the
guest might had enabled, and hence will lead to vector exhaustion on the
system, not allowing further PCI pass through devices to work properly.

IMPACT
======

HVM guests with PCI pass through devices can mount a Denial of Service (DoS)
attack affecting the pass through of PCI devices to other guests or the
hardware domain. In the latter case this would affect the entire host.

VULNERABLE SYSTEMS
==================

Xen versions 4.12.3, 4.12.4, and all versions from 4.13.1 onwards are
vulnerable. Xen version 4.13.0 and all versions up to 4.12.2 are not
affected.

Only x86 systems running HVM guests with PCI pass through devices are
vulnerable.

MITIGATION
==========

Not running HVM guests with PCI pass through devices will avoid the
vulnerability. Note that even non-malicious guests can trigger this
vulnerability as part of normal operation.

RESOLUTION
==========

Applying the appropriate attached patch resolves this issue.

Note that patches for released versions are generally prepared to
apply to the stable branches, and may not apply cleanly to the most
recent release tarball. Downstreams are encouraged to update to the
tip of the stable branch before applying these patches.

xsa360.patch xen-unstable
xsa360-4.14.patch Xen 4.14 - 4.12

$ sha256sum xsa360*
c874ad2b9edb0791ac975735306d055b1916f4acbc59e6f1550fbf33223d6106 xsa360.meta
592f3afda63777d31844e0e34d85fbe387a62d59fa7903ee19b22a98fba68894 xsa360.patch
809515011efb781a2a8742e9acfd76412d3920c2d4142bb187588cd36f77383e xsa360-4.14.patch
$

CREDITS
=======

This issue was discovered by James McCoy, debugged in combination with
Samuel Verschelde of Vates, and recognised as a security issue by Roger
Pau Monné of Citrix.

NOTE REGARDING LACK OF EMBARGO
==============================

This was reported and debugged publicly, before the security
implications were apparent.
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