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Chapter 15. Securing virtual machines

As an administrator of a RHEL 8 system with virtual machines (VMs), ensuring that your VMs are as secure as possible significantly lowers the risk of your guest and host OSs being infected by malicious software.

This document outlines the mechanics of securing VMs on a RHEL 8 host and provides a list of methods to increase the security of your VMs.

15.1. How security works in virtual machines

When using virtual machines (VMs), multiple operating systems can be housed within a single host machine. These systems are connected with the host through the hypervisor, and usually also through a virtual network. As a consequence, each VM can be used as a vector for attacking the host with malicious software, and the host can be used as a vector for attacking any of the VMs.

Figure 15.1. A potential malware attack vector on a virtualization host

Because the hypervisor uses the host kernel to manage VMs, services running on the VM’s operating system are frequently used for injecting malicious code into the host system. However, you can protect your system against such security threats by using a number of security features on your host and your guest systems.

These features, such as SELinux or QEMU sandboxing, provide various measures that make it more difficult for malicious code to attack the hypervisor and transfer between your host and your VMs.

Figure 15.2. Prevented malware attacks on a virtualization host

Many of the features that RHEL 8 provides for VM security are always active and do not have to be enabled or configured. For details, see Section 15.4, “Automatic features for virtual machine security”.

In addition, you can adhere to a variety of best practices to minimize the vulnerability of your VMs and your hypervisor. For more information, see Section 15.2, “Best practices for securing virtual machines”.

15.2. Best practices for securing virtual machines

Following the instructions below significantly decreases the risk of your virtual machines being infected with malicious code and used as attack vectors to infect your host system.

On the guest side:

Secure the virtual machine as if it was a physical machine. The specific methods available to enhance security depend on the guest OS.
If your VM is running RHEL 8, see Configuring and managing security in RHEL 8 for detailed instructions on improving the security of your guest system.

On the host side:

When managing VMs remotely, use cryptographic utilities such as SSH and network protocols such as SSL for connecting to the VMs.
Ensure SELinux is in Enforcing mode:
```
# getenforce
Enforcing
```
If SELinux is disabled or in Permissive mode, see the Using SELinux document for instructions on activating Enforcing mode.
Note
SELinux Enforcing mode also enables the sVirt RHEL 8 feature. This is a set of specialized SELinux booleans for virtualization, which can be manually adjusted for fine-grained VM security management.
Use VMs with SecureBoot:
SecureBoot is a feature that ensures that your VM is running a cryptographically signed OS. This prevents VMs whose OS has been altered by a malware attack from booting.
SecureBoot can only be applied when installing a Linux VM that uses OVMF firmware. For instructions, see Section 15.3, “Creating a SecureBoot virtual machine”.
Do not use qemu-* commands, such as qemu-img.
QEMU is an essential component of the virtualization architecture in RHEL 8, but it is difficult to manage manually, and improper QEMU configurations may cause security vulnerabilities. Therefore, using qemu-* commands is not supported by Red Hat. Instead, it is highly recommended to interact with QEMU using libvirt utilities, such as virsh, virt-install, and virt-xml, as these orchestrate QEMU according to the best practices.

Additional resources

For detailed information on modifying your virtualization booleans, see Section 15.5, “Virtualization booleans”.

15.3. Creating a SecureBoot virtual machine

The following provides instructions on creating a Linux virtual machine (VM) that uses the SecureBoot feature, which ensures that your VM is running a cryptographically signed OS. If the guest OS of a VM has been altered by malware, SecureBoot prevents the VM from booting, which stops the potential spread of the malware to your host machine.

Prerequisites

The VM is using the Q35 machine type.
The edk2-OVMF packages is installed:
```
# yum install edk2-ovmf
```
An operating system (OS) installation source is available locally or on a network. This can be one of the following formats:
- An ISO image of an installation medium
- A disk image of an existing VM installation
Optional: A Kickstart file can be provided for faster and easier configuration of the installation.

Procedure

Use the virt-install command to create a VM as detailed in Section 2.2.1, “Creating virtual machines using the command-line interface”. For the --boot option, use the uefi,nvram_template=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS.secboot.fd value. This uses the OVMF_VARS.secboot.fd and OVMF_CODE.secboot.fd files as templates for the VM’s non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) settings, which enables the SecureBoot feature.
For example:
```
# virt-install --name rhel8sb --memory 4096 --vcpus 4 --os-variant rhel8.0 --boot uefi,nvram_template=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS.secboot.fd --disk boot_order=2,size=10 --disk boot_order=1,device=cdrom,bus=scsi,path=/images/RHEL-8.0-installation.iso
```
Follow the OS installation procedure according to the instructions on the screen.

Verification

After the guest OS is installed, access the VM’s command line by opening the terminal in the graphical guest console or connecting to the guest OS using SSH.
To confirm that SecureBoot has been enabled on the VM, use the mokutil --sb-state command:
```
# mokutil --sb-state
SecureBoot enabled
```

Additional resources

For details on the installation process when creating VMs that use RHEL 8 as the guest OS, see Booting the RHEL 8 installation.

15.4. Automatic features for virtual machine security

In addition to manual means of improving the security of your virtual machines listed in Section 15.2, “Best practices for securing virtual machines”, a number of security features are provided by the libvirt software suite and are automatically enabled when using virtualization in RHEL 8. These include:

System and session connections

To access all the available utilities for virtual machine management in RHEL 8, you need to use the system connection of libvirt (qemu:///system). To do so, you must have root privileges on the system or be a part of the libvirt user group.

Non-root users that are not in the libvirt group can only access a session connection of libvirt (qemu:///session), which has to respect the access rights of the local user when accessing resources. For example, using the session connection, you cannot detect or access VMs created in the system connection or by other users. Also, available VM networking configuration options are significantly limited.

Note

The RHEL 8 documentation assumes you have system connection privileges.

Virtual machine separation

Individual VMs run as isolated processes on the host, and rely on security enforced by the host kernel. Therefore, a VM cannot read or access the memory or storage of other VMs on the same host.

QEMU sandboxing

A feature that prevents QEMU code from executing system calls that can compromise the security of the host.

Kernel Address Space Randomization (KASLR)

Enables randomizing the physical and virtual addresses at which the kernel image is decompressed. Thus, KASLR prevents guest security exploits based on the location of kernel objects.

15.5. Virtualization booleans

For fine-grained configuration of virtual machines security on a RHEL 8 system, you can configure SELinux booleans on the host to ensure the hypervisor acts in a specific way.

To list all virtualization-related booleans and their statuses, use the getsebool -a | grep virt command:

$ getsebool -a | grep virt
[...]
virt_sandbox_use_netlink --> off
virt_sandbox_use_sys_admin --> off
virt_transition_userdomain --> off
virt_use_comm --> off
virt_use_execmem --> off
virt_use_fusefs --> off
[...]

To enable a specific boolean, use the setsebool -P boolean_name on command as root. To disable a boolean, use setsebool -P boolean_name off.

The following table lists virtualization-related booleans available in RHEL 8 and what they do when enabled:

Table 15.1. SELinux virtualization booleans

SELinux Boolean	Description
staff_use_svirt	Enables non-root users to create and transition VMs to sVirt.
unprivuser_use_svirt	Enables unprivileged users to create and transition VMs to sVirt.
virt_sandbox_use_audit	Enables sandbox containers to send audit messages.
virt_sandbox_use_netlink	Enables sandbox containers to use netlink system calls.
virt_sandbox_use_sys_admin	Enables sandbox containers to use sys_admin system calls, such as mount.
virt_transition_userdomain	Enables virtual processes to run as user domains.
virt_use_comm	Enables virt to use serial/parallel communication ports.
virt_use_execmem	Enables confined virtual guests to use executable memory and executable stack.
virt_use_fusefs	Enables virt to read FUSE mounted files.
virt_use_nfs	Enables virt to manage NFS mounted files.
virt_use_rawip	Enables virt to interact with rawip sockets.
virt_use_samba	Enables virt to manage CIFS mounted files.
virt_use_sanlock	Enables confined virtual guests to interact with the sanlock.
virt_use_usb	Enables virt to use USB devices.
virt_use_xserver	Enables virtual machine to interact with the X Window System.

15.6. Setting up IBM Secure Execution on IBM Z

When using IBM Z hardware to run a RHEL 8 host, you can improve the security of your virtual machines (VMs) by configuring IBM Secure Execution for the VMs.

IBM Secure Execution, also known as Protected Virtualization, prevents the host system from accessing a VM’s state and memory contents. As a result, even if the host is compromised, it cannot be used as a vector for attacking the guest operating system. In addition, Secure Execution can be used to prevent untrusted hosts from obtaining sensitive information from the VM.

The following procedure describes how to convert an existing VM on an IBM Z host into a secured VM.

Prerequisites

The system hardware is one of the following:
- IBM z15 or later
- IBM LinuxONE III or later
The Secure Execution feature is enabled for your system. To verify, use:
```
# grep facilities /proc/cpuinfo | grep 158
```
If this command displays any output, your CPU is compatible with Secure Execution.
The kernel includes support for Secure Execution. To confirm, use:
```
# ls /sys/firmware | grep uv
```
If the command generates any output, your kernel supports Secure Execution.
The host CPU model contains the unpack facility. To confirm, use:
```
# virsh domcapabilities | grep unpack
<feature policy='require' name='unpack'/>
```
If the command generates the above output, your CPU host model is compatible with Secure Execution.

The CPU mode of the VM is set to host-model. To confirm this, use the following and replace vm-name with the name of your VM.
```
# virsh dumpxml vm-name | grep "<cpu mode='host-model'/>"
```
If the command generates any output, the VM’s CPU mode is set correctly.

You have obtained and verified the IBM Z host key document. For instructions to do so, see Verifying the host key document in IBM documentation.

Procedure

Add the prot_virt=1 kernel parameter to the boot configuration of the host.
```
# # grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args="prot_virt=1"
```
Create a parameter file for the VM you want to secure. For example:
```
# touch ~/secure-parameters
```

In the /boot/loader/entries directory of the host, identify the boot loader entry with the latest version:

# ls /boot/loader/entries -l
[...]
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  281 Oct  9 15:51 3ab27a195c2849429927b00679db15c1-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x.conf

Retrieve the kernel options line of the boot loader entry:

# cat /boot/loader/entries/3ab27a195c2849429927b00679db15c1-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x.conf | grep options
options root=/dev/mapper/rhel-root crashkernel=auto rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap

Add the content of the options line and swiotlb=262144 to the created parameters file.

# echo "root=/dev/mapper/rhel-root crashkernel=auto rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap swiotlb=262144" > ~/secure-parameters

Generate an IBM Secure Execution image for the selected VM.
For example, the following creates a /boot/secure-image secured image based on the /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x image, using the secure-parameters file, the /boot/initramfs-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x.img initial RAM disk file, and the HKD-8651-000201C048.crt host key document.
```
# genprotimg -i /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x -r /boot/initramfs-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x.img -p ~/secure-parameters -k HKD-8651-00020089A8.crt -o /boot/secure-image
```
Using the genprotimg utility creates the secure image, which contains the kernel parameters, initial RAM disk, and boot image.
In the guest operating system of the VM, update the VM’s boot menu to boot from the secure image. In addition, remove the lines starting with initrd and options, as they are not needed.
For example, in a RHEL 8.3 VM, the boot menu can be edited in the /boot/loader/entries/ directory:
```
# cat /boot/loader/entries/3ab27a195c2849429927b00679db15c1-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x.conf
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3
version 4.18.0-240.el8.s390x
linux /boot/secure-image
[...]
```
Enable virtio devices to use shared buffers. To do so, use virsh edit to modify the XML configuration of the VM, and add iommu='on' to the <driver> line of all devices that have one. For example:
```
<interface type='network'>
  <source network='default'/>
  <model type='virtio'/>
  <driver name='vhost' iommu='on'/>
</interface>
```
If a device configuration does not contain any <driver> line, add <driver iommu='on'\> instead.
Disable memory ballooning on the VM, as the feature is not compatible with Secure Execution. To do so, add the following line to the VM’s XML configuration.
```
<memballoon model='none'/>
```
Create the bootable disk image
```
# zipl -V
```
Securely remove the original unprotected files. For example:
```
# shred /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x
# shred /boot/initramfs-4.18.0-240.el8.s390x.img
# shred secure-parameters
```
The original boot image, the initial RAM image, and the kernel parameter file are unprotected, and if they are not removed, VMs with Secure Execution enabled can still be vulnerable to hacking attempts or sensitive data mining.

Verification

On the host, use the virsh dumpxml utility to confirm the XML configuration of the secured VM. The configuration must include the <driver iommu='on'/> and <memballoon model='none'/> elements.

# virsh dumpxml vm-name
[...]
  <cpu mode='host-model'/>
  <devices>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2' cache='none' io='native' iommu='on'>
      <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/secure-guest.qcow2'/>
      <target dev='vda' bus='virtio'/>
    </disk>
    <interface type='network'>
      <driver iommu='on'/>
      <source network='default'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
    </interface>
    <console type='pty'/>
    <memballoon model='none'/>
  </devices>
</domain>

Additional resources

For additonal instructions on modifying the boot configuration of the host, see Configuring kernel command-line parameters.
For more information on the genprotimg utility, see IBM documentation.

15.7. Attaching cryptographic coprocessors to virtual machines on IBM Z

To use hardware encryption in your virtual machine (VM) on an IBM Z host, create mediated devices from a cryptographic coprocessor device and assign them to the intended VMs. For detailed instructions, see below.

Prerequisites

Your host is running on IBM Z hardware.

The cryptographic coprocessor is compatible with device assignment. To confirm this, ensure that the type of your coprocessor is listed as CEX4 or later.

# lszcrypt -V

CARD.DOMAIN TYPE  MODE        STATUS  REQUESTS  PENDING HWTYPE QDEPTH FUNCTIONS  DRIVER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
05         CEX5C CCA-Coproc  online         1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4card
05.0004    CEX5C CCA-Coproc  online         1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4queue
05.00ab    CEX5C CCA-Coproc  online         1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4queue

The mdevctl package is installed.

The vfio_ap kernel module is loaded. To verify, use:

# lsmod | grep vfio_ap
vfio_ap         24576  0
[...]

To load the module, use:

# modprobe vfio_ap

Procedure

On the host, reassign your crypto device to the vfio-ap drivers. The following example assigns two crypto devices with bitmask IDs (0x05, 0x0004) and (0x05, 0x00ab) to vfio-ap.
```
#  echo -0x05 > /sys/bus/ap/apmask
#  echo -0x0004, -0x00ab > /sys/bus/ap/aqmask
```
For information on identifying the bitmask ID values, see Preparing pass-through devices for cryptographic adapter resources in the KVM Virtual Server Management document from IBM.

Verify that the crypto devices have been reassigned correctly.

# lszcrypt -V

CARD.DOMAIN TYPE  MODE        STATUS  REQUESTS  PENDING HWTYPE QDEPTH FUNCTIONS  DRIVER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
05          CEX5C CCA-Coproc  -              1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4card
05.0004     CEX5C CCA-Coproc  -              1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  vfio_ap
05.00ab     CEX5C CCA-Coproc  -              1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  vfio_ap

If the DRIVER values of the domain queues changed to vfio_ap, the reassignment succeeded.

Generate a device UUID.
```
# uuidgen
669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71
```
In the following steps of this procedure, replace 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71 with your generated UUID.

Using the UUID, create a new vfio_ap device.

The following example shows creating a persistent mediated device and assigning queues to it. For example, the following commands assign domain adapter 0x05 and domain queues 0x0004 and 0x00ab to device 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71.

# mdevctl define --uuid 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71 --parent matrix --type vfio_ap-passthrough
# mdevctl modify --uuid 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71 --addattr=assign_adapter --value=0x05
# mdevctl modify --uuid 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71 --addattr=assign_domain --value=0x0004
# mdevctl modify --uuid 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71 --addattr=assign_domain --value=0x00ab

Start the mediated device.

# mdevctl start --uuid 669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71

Check that the configuration has been applied correctly
```
# cat /sys/devices/vfio_ap/matrix/mdev_supported_types/vfio_ap-passthrough/devices/669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71/matrix
05.0004
05.00ab
```
If the output contains the numerical values of queues that you have previously assigned to vfio-ap, the process was successful.
Use the virsh edit command to open the XML configuration of the VM where you want to use the crypto devices.
```
# virsh edit vm-name
```

Add the following lines to the <devices> section in the XML configuration, and save it.

<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='mdev' managed='no' model='vfio-ap'>
  <source>
    <address uuid='669d9b23-fe1b-4ecb-be08-a2fabca99b71'/>
  </source>
</hostdev>

Note that each UUID can only be assigned to one VM at a time.

Verification

Start the VM to which you assigned the mediated device.

After the guest operating system (OS) boots, ensure that it detects the assigned crypto devices.

# lszcrypt -V

CARD.DOMAIN TYPE  MODE        STATUS  REQUESTS  PENDING HWTYPE QDEPTH FUNCTIONS  DRIVER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
05          CEX5C CCA-Coproc  online         1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4card
05.0004     CEX5C CCA-Coproc  online         1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4queue
05.00ab     CEX5C CCA-Coproc  online         1        0     11     08 S--D--N--  cex4queue

The output of this command in the guest OS will be identical to that on a host logical partition with the same cryptographic coprocessor devices available.

15.8. Enabling standard hardware security on Windows virtual machines

To secure Windows virtual machines (VMs), you can enable basic level security using the standard hardware capabilities of the Windows device.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have installed the latest WHQL certified VirtIO drivers.
Make sure the VM’s firmware supports UEFI boot.
Install the edk2-OVMF package on your host machine.
```
# yum install edk2-ovmf
```
Install the vTPM packages on your host machine.
```
# yum install swtpm libtpms
```
Make sure the VM is using the Q35 machine architecture.
Make sure you have the Windows installation media.

Procedure

Enable TPM 2.0 by adding the following parameters to the <devices> section in the VM’s XML configuration.

<devices>
[...]
  <tpm model='tpm-crb'>
    <backend type='emulator' version='2.0'/>
  </tpm>
[...]
</devices>

Install Windows in UEFI mode. For more information on how to do so, see Creating a SecureBoot virtual machine.
Install the VirtIO drivers on the Windows VM. For more information on how to do so, see Installing virtio drivers on a Windows guest.
In UEFI, enable Secure Boot. For more information on how to do so, see Secure Boot.

Verification

Ensure that the Device Security page on your Windows machine displays the following message:
Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device Security
```
Your device meets the requirements for standard hardware security.
```

15.9. Enabling enhanced hardware security on Windows virtual machines

To further secure Windows virtual machines (VMs), you can enable virtualization-based protection of code integrity, also known as Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI).

Prerequisites

Ensure that standard hardware security is enabled. For more information, see Enabling standard hardware security on Windows virtual machines.
Ensure that KVM nesting is enabled. For more information, see Creating nested virtual machines.

On the KVM command line,

Specify the CPU model.
Enable the Virtual Machine Extensions (VMX) feature.

Enable Hyper-V enlightenments.

# -cpu Skylake-Client-v3,hv_stimer,hv_synic,hv_relaxed,hv_reenlightenment,hv_spinlocks=0xfff,hv_vpindex,hv_vapic,hv_time,hv_frequencies,hv_runtime,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+vmx

Procedure

On your Windows VM, navigate to the Core isolation details page:
Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device Security > Core isolation details
Toggle the switch to enable Memory Integrity.
Reboot the VM.

Note

For other methods of enabling HVCI, see the relevant Microsoft documentation.

Verification steps

Ensure that the Device Security page on your Windows VM displays the following message:
Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device Security
```
Your device meets the requirements for enhanced hardware security.
```
Alternatively, check System Information on the Windows VM:
1. Run msinfo32.exe in a command prompt.
2. Check if Credential Guard, Hypervisor enforced Code Integrity is listed under Virtualization-based security Services Running.

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Red Hat Training

Chapter 15. Securing virtual machines

15.1. How security works in virtual machines

15.2. Best practices for securing virtual machines

15.3. Creating a SecureBoot virtual machine

15.4. Automatic features for virtual machine security

15.5. Virtualization booleans

15.6. Setting up IBM Secure Execution on IBM Z

15.7. Attaching cryptographic coprocessors to virtual machines on IBM Z

15.8. Enabling standard hardware security on Windows virtual machines

15.9. Enabling enhanced hardware security on Windows virtual machines