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From:   Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Requirements for retpoline in Linux 4.15 (was: Re: Linux 4.15)
Date:   Mon, 29 Jan 2018 10:41:15 +0100
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Hi Linus, hi everyone,

Linus Torvalds - 28.01.18, 22:52:
> details), and perhaps equally importantly, to actually get the biggest
> fix for the indirect branch mitigations, you need not just the kernel
> updates, you need to have a compiler with support for the "retpoline"
> indirect branch model.
> 
> You can do
> 
>     cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2
> 
> and if you don't have a compiler that supports the retpoline
> mitigations, you'll get:
> 
>     Vulnerable: Minimal generic ASM retpoline
> 
> because only the assembly code (not the C code) will have the
> retpoline mitigation. So keep that in mind.

I have:

% cat /proc/version
Linux version 4.15.0-tp520-btrfstrim+ ([…]) (gcc version 7.3.0 (Debian 
7.3.0-1)) #38 SMP PREEMPT Mon Jan 29 09:38:44 CET 2018

% grep RETPO /boot/config-4.15.0-tp520-btrfstrim+
CONFIG_RETPOLINE=y

% gcc --version | head -1
gcc (Debian 7.3.0-1) 7.3.0

% apt changelog gcc-7
gcc-7 (7.3.0-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * GCC 7.3.0 release.
  * Ignore bootstrap comparison failures in gcc/d on alpha. Addresses: 
#888394.

 -- Matthias Klose […]  Thu, 25 Jan 2018 12:07:10 +0100


Yet:

% grep . /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Mitigation: PTI
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Vulnerable
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Vulnerable: Minimal generic 
ASM retpoline


From what I read gcc 7.3 was supposed to include back ported retpoline 
patches. What am I missing here?

Thanks,
-- 
Martin