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Date:   Thu, 10 Jan 2019 12:21:19 -0600
From:   Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
To:     Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com>
Cc:     Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
        Nadav Amit <namit@vmware.com>, X86 ML <x86@kernel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
        Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>,
        Jason Baron <jbaron@akamai.com>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@ACULAB.COM>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        Julia Cartwright <julia@ni.com>, Jessica Yu <jeyu@kernel.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        Rasmus Villemoes <linux@rasmusvillemoes.dk>,
        Edward Cree <ecree@solarflare.com>,
        Daniel Bristot de Oliveira <bristot@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 5/6] x86/alternative: Use a single access in
 text_poke() where possible
Message-ID: <20190110182119.56uw7aghymh2txke@treble>
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On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 10:04:28AM -0800, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 12:57:57PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > On Thu, 10 Jan 2019 09:42:57 -0800
> > Sean Christopherson <sean.j.christopherson@intel.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 12:32:43PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 10 Jan 2019 11:20:04 -0600
> > > > Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > >   
> > > > > > While I can't find a reason for hypervisors to emulate this instruction,
> > > > > > smarter people might find ways to turn it into a security exploit.    
> > > > > 
> > > > > Interesting point... but I wonder if it's a realistic concern.  BTW,
> > > > > text_poke_bp() also relies on undocumented behavior.  
> > > > 
> > > > But we did get an official OK from Intel that it will work. Took a bit
> > > > of arm twisting to get them to do so, but they did. And it really is
> > > > pretty robust.  
> > > 
> > > Did we (they?) list any caveats for this behavior?  E.g. I'm fairly
> > > certain atomicity guarantees go out the window if WC memtype is used.
> > 
> > Note, the text_poke_bp() process was this: (nothing to do with atomic
> > guarantees)
> > 
> > add breakpoint (one byte) to instruction.
> > 
> > Sync all cores (send an IPI to each one).
> > 
> > change the back half of the instruction (the rest of the instruction
> > after the breakpoint).
> > 
> > Sync all cores
> > 
> > Remove the breakpoint with the new byte of the new instruction.
> > 
> > 
> > What atomicity guarantee does the above require?
> 
> I was asking in the context of static calls.  My understanding is that
> the write to change the imm32 of the CALL needs to be atomic from a
> code fetch perspective so that we don't jump to a junk address.
> 
> Or were you saying that Intel gave an official OK on text_poke_bp()?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was saying that.

Whose arms can we twist for finding out about static calls? :-)

-- 
Josh