5 This document describes the TEE subsystem in Linux.
7 A TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) is a trusted OS running in some
8 secure environment, for example, TrustZone on ARM CPUs, or a separate
9 secure co-processor etc. A TEE driver handles the details needed to
10 communicate with the TEE.
12 This subsystem deals with:
14 - Registration of TEE drivers
16 - Managing shared memory between Linux and the TEE
18 - Providing a generic API to the TEE
23 include/uapi/linux/tee.h defines the generic interface to a TEE.
25 User space (the client) connects to the driver by opening /dev/tee[0-9]* or
28 - TEE_IOC_SHM_ALLOC allocates shared memory and returns a file descriptor
29 which user space can mmap. When user space doesn't need the file
30 descriptor any more, it should be closed. When shared memory isn't needed
31 any longer it should be unmapped with munmap() to allow the reuse of
34 - TEE_IOC_VERSION lets user space know which TEE this driver handles and
37 - TEE_IOC_OPEN_SESSION opens a new session to a Trusted Application.
39 - TEE_IOC_INVOKE invokes a function in a Trusted Application.
41 - TEE_IOC_CANCEL may cancel an ongoing TEE_IOC_OPEN_SESSION or TEE_IOC_INVOKE.
43 - TEE_IOC_CLOSE_SESSION closes a session to a Trusted Application.
45 There are two classes of clients, normal clients and supplicants. The latter is
46 a helper process for the TEE to access resources in Linux, for example file
47 system access. A normal client opens /dev/tee[0-9]* and a supplicant opens
50 Much of the communication between clients and the TEE is opaque to the
51 driver. The main job for the driver is to receive requests from the
52 clients, forward them to the TEE and send back the results. In the case of
53 supplicants the communication goes in the other direction, the TEE sends
54 requests to the supplicant which then sends back the result.
59 The OP-TEE driver handles OP-TEE [1] based TEEs. Currently it is only the ARM
60 TrustZone based OP-TEE solution that is supported.
62 Lowest level of communication with OP-TEE builds on ARM SMC Calling
63 Convention (SMCCC) [2], which is the foundation for OP-TEE's SMC interface
64 [3] used internally by the driver. Stacked on top of that is OP-TEE Message
67 OP-TEE SMC interface provides the basic functions required by SMCCC and some
68 additional functions specific for OP-TEE. The most interesting functions are:
70 - OPTEE_SMC_FUNCID_CALLS_UID (part of SMCCC) returns the version information
71 which is then returned by TEE_IOC_VERSION
73 - OPTEE_SMC_CALL_GET_OS_UUID returns the particular OP-TEE implementation, used
74 to tell, for instance, a TrustZone OP-TEE apart from an OP-TEE running on a
75 separate secure co-processor.
77 - OPTEE_SMC_CALL_WITH_ARG drives the OP-TEE message protocol
79 - OPTEE_SMC_GET_SHM_CONFIG lets the driver and OP-TEE agree on which memory
80 range to used for shared memory between Linux and OP-TEE.
82 The GlobalPlatform TEE Client API [5] is implemented on top of the generic
85 Picture of the relationship between the different components in the
88 User space Kernel Secure world
89 ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
90 +--------+ +-------------+
91 | Client | | Trusted |
92 +--------+ | Application |
97 || +----------+ +-------------+
100 + TEE | || +--------+--------+ +-------------+
101 | Client| || | TEE | OP-TEE | | OP-TEE |
102 | API | \/ | subsys | driver | | Trusted OS |
103 +-------+----------------+----+-------+----+-----------+-------------+
104 | Generic TEE API | | OP-TEE MSG |
105 | IOCTL (TEE_IOC_*) | | SMCCC (OPTEE_SMC_CALL_*) |
106 +-----------------------------+ +------------------------------+
108 RPC (Remote Procedure Call) are requests from secure world to kernel driver
109 or tee-supplicant. An RPC is identified by a special range of SMCCC return
110 values from OPTEE_SMC_CALL_WITH_ARG. RPC messages which are intended for the
111 kernel are handled by the kernel driver. Other RPC messages will be forwarded to
112 tee-supplicant without further involvement of the driver, except switching
113 shared memory buffer representation.
118 The AMD-TEE driver handles the communication with AMD's TEE environment. The
119 TEE environment is provided by AMD Secure Processor.
121 The AMD Secure Processor (formerly called Platform Security Processor or PSP)
122 is a dedicated processor that features ARM TrustZone technology, along with a
123 software-based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) designed to enable
124 third-party Trusted Applications. This feature is currently enabled only for
127 The following picture shows a high level overview of AMD-TEE::
132 User space (Kernel space) | AMD Secure Processor (PSP)
133 ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
135 +--------+ | +-------------+
136 | Client | | | Trusted |
137 +--------+ | | Application |
146 +---------+ +-----------+---------+ +----------+
147 | TEE | | TEE | AMD-TEE | | AMD-TEE |
148 | Client | | subsystem | driver | | Trusted |
150 +---------+-----------+----+------+---------+---------+----------+
151 | Generic TEE API | | ASP | Mailbox |
152 | IOCTL (TEE_IOC_*) | | driver | Register Protocol |
153 +--------------------------+ +---------+--------------------+
155 At the lowest level (in x86), the AMD Secure Processor (ASP) driver uses the
156 CPU to PSP mailbox regsister to submit commands to the PSP. The format of the
157 command buffer is opaque to the ASP driver. It's role is to submit commands to
158 the secure processor and return results to AMD-TEE driver. The interface
159 between AMD-TEE driver and AMD Secure Processor driver can be found in [6].
161 The AMD-TEE driver packages the command buffer payload for processing in TEE.
162 The command buffer format for the different TEE commands can be found in [7].
164 The TEE commands supported by AMD-TEE Trusted OS are:
165 * TEE_CMD_ID_LOAD_TA - loads a Trusted Application (TA) binary into
167 * TEE_CMD_ID_UNLOAD_TA - unloads TA binary from TEE environment.
168 * TEE_CMD_ID_OPEN_SESSION - opens a session with a loaded TA.
169 * TEE_CMD_ID_CLOSE_SESSION - closes session with loaded TA
170 * TEE_CMD_ID_INVOKE_CMD - invokes a command with loaded TA
171 * TEE_CMD_ID_MAP_SHARED_MEM - maps shared memory
172 * TEE_CMD_ID_UNMAP_SHARED_MEM - unmaps shared memory
174 AMD-TEE Trusted OS is the firmware running on AMD Secure Processor.
176 The AMD-TEE driver registers itself with TEE subsystem and implements the
177 following driver function callbacks:
179 * get_version - returns the driver implementation id and capability.
180 * open - sets up the driver context data structure.
181 * release - frees up driver resources.
182 * open_session - loads the TA binary and opens session with loaded TA.
183 * close_session - closes session with loaded TA and unloads it.
184 * invoke_func - invokes a command with loaded TA.
186 cancel_req driver callback is not supported by AMD-TEE.
188 The GlobalPlatform TEE Client API [5] can be used by the user space (client) to
189 talk to AMD's TEE. AMD's TEE provides a secure environment for loading, opening
190 a session, invoking commands and clossing session with TA.
195 [1] https://github.com/OP-TEE/optee_os
197 [2] http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.den0028a/index.html
199 [3] drivers/tee/optee/optee_smc.h
201 [4] drivers/tee/optee/optee_msg.h
203 [5] http://www.globalplatform.org/specificationsdevice.asp look for
204 "TEE Client API Specification v1.0" and click download.
206 [6] include/linux/psp-tee.h
208 [7] drivers/tee/amdtee/amdtee_if.h