sort out clocksource and wall clock for VirtualBox to prevent Clock Correlation Attack

[phabricator-migrator]

Information

ID: 437
PHID: PHID-TASK-xxyt2zmrmrm5i3mjkkcp
Author: Patrick
Status at Migration Time: open
Priority at Migration Time: Normal

Description

Clock Correlation Attack:

TimeSync: Whonix Time Synchronization Mechanism

Similar to tickets which are specific to other virtualizers.

• Qubes: T389
• KVM: T431

This ticket is for VirtualBox.

Perhaps split this ticket into sorting out clocksource and sorting out wall clock.

A user had issues with the whonixcheck pvclock test:

Recurring Time Error within Gateway 11 under VirtualBox 5 - ERROR: Unwanted PVClock kvm-clock tsc acpi_pm detected!

OK Patrick - I’m learning more about this issue as we progress, and I’m glad you’ll work to resolve it in 12. And, unsurprisingly, the issue of a real fix had crossed my mind. Your UTC explanations make sense in the larger user context. If it’s important enough to try to isolate the update/group of updates which are triggering this error, I can start with a clean Gateway 11.ova reinstall and a from known set of initial VBox paramaters, and then start running updates/rebooting after…

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