topic Re: SGX inside a VM in Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX)

SGX inside a VM

NDei — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 13:26:30 GMT

Hello,

I am trying to use SGX inside an Ubuntu 20.04 VM created with either VMWare Workstation 16 Player or Oracle VM Virtualbox (I tried both).

My Host System has Intel i5-8400T CPU, which according to its documentation supports SGX with Intel ME.

The installed VMs do not support SGX, with the error message being that the CPU does not support it.

When I run $cpuid | grep -i sgx in a terminal the result is

I would appreciate any hints or solutions.

Re: SGX inside a VM

Anandakumar — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 09:30:24 GMT

Hi NDei,

Just sharing my experience with SGX VMs here.

With QEMU 6.2.0 and kernel 5.13* I was able to launch enclaves. Since you have been working in Ubuntu, you can give a try with QEMU.

Thanks

Anand

Re: SGX inside a VM

Sahira_Intel — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 23:14:37 GMT

Hi,

Make sure SGX is set to enabled or software controlled in the BIOS of the host system. Also make sure you are running Linux kernel 5.13 or later on both the host and VM.

See more information here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/virtualizing-intel-software-guard-extensions-with-kvm-and-qemu.html

Re: SGX inside a VM

Anandakumar — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 05:09:20 GMT

@Sahira_Intel

The given link for SGX Virtualization is outdated.

https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Software-Guard-Extensions/Long-pending-Intel-SGX-VM-related-issues/m-p/1382835

Re: SGX inside a VM

Sahira_Intel — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 22:14:17 GMT

Hi Anand,

The document cannot be updated yet because there's a libvirt patch we are waiting to be upstreamed before we can correct the document.

Your error about sgx1/2= false is likely to do with SGX being disabled in the BIOS. Did you switch SGX to enabled or software controlled?

Note that a processor that supports SGX with Intel Management Engine only, will not support it on the M10JNP2S board.

Sincerely,

Sahira

Re: SGX inside a VM

Anandakumar — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 05:54:56 GMT

@Sahira_Intel

The document cannot be updated yet because there's a libvirt patch we are waiting to be upstreamed before we can correct the document.

Is there any issue link to track the update?

Your error about sgx1/2= false is likely to do with SGX being disabled in the BIOS. Did you switch SGX to enabled or software controlled?

Note that a processor that supports SGX with Intel Management Engine only, will not support it on the M10JNP2S board.

I hope you are referring this to @NDei .

Re: SGX inside a VM

Sahira_Intel — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 17:33:21 GMT

Hi @NDei

Your error about sgx1/2= false is likely to do with SGX being disabled in the BIOS. Did you switch SGX to enabled or software controlled?

Note that a processor that supports SGX with Intel Management Engine only, will not support it on the M10JNP2S board.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Sincerely,

Sahira

Re: SGX inside a VM

Sahira_Intel — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 17:34:51 GMT

Yes, that comment was meant to be a reply to the original post.

link to track libvirt issue: https://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/libvir/msg231287.html