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From:   Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Date:   Mon, 16 Nov 2020 10:34:40 -0800
Message-ID: <CALCETrUJQJRi6fE=bs3iAySgM8wjmGU1f464FqOuU+PiBwwnQQ@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH v2 12/21] x86/pti: Use PTI stack instead of
 trampoline stack
To:     Alexandre Chartre <alexandre.chartre@oracle.com>
Cc:     Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>, X86 ML <x86@kernel.org>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@amd.com>,
        Joerg Roedel <jroedel@suse.de>,
        Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>,
        jan.setjeeilers@oracle.com, Junaid Shahid <junaids@google.com>,
        oweisse@google.com, Mike Rapoport <rppt@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Alexander Graf <graf@amazon.de>, mgross@linux.intel.com,
        kuzuno@gmail.com
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On Mon, Nov 16, 2020 at 10:10 AM Alexandre Chartre
<alexandre.chartre@oracle.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 11/16/20 5:57 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 16, 2020 at 6:47 AM Alexandre Chartre
> > <alexandre.chartre@oracle.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> When entering the kernel from userland, use the per-task PTI stack
> >> instead of the per-cpu trampoline stack. Like the trampoline stack,
> >> the PTI stack is mapped both in the kernel and in the user page-table.
> >> Using a per-task stack which is mapped into the kernel and the user
> >> page-table instead of a per-cpu stack will allow executing more code
> >> before switching to the kernel stack and to the kernel page-table.
> >
> > Why?
>
> When executing more code in the kernel, we are likely to reach a point
> where we need to sleep while we are using the user page-table, so we need
> to be using a per-thread stack.
>
> > I can't immediately evaluate how nasty the page table setup is because
> > it's not in this patch.
>
> The page-table is the regular page-table as introduced by PTI. It is just
> augmented with a few additional mapping which are in patch 11 (x86/pti:
> Extend PTI user mappings).
>
> >  But AFAICS the only thing that this enables is sleeping with user pagetables.
>
> That's precisely the point, it allows to sleep with the user page-table.
>
> > Do we really need to do that?
>
> Actually, probably not with this particular patchset, because I do the page-table
> switch at the very beginning and end of the C handler. I had some code where I
> moved the page-table switch deeper in the kernel handler where you definitively
> can sleep (for example, if you switch back to the user page-table before
> exit_to_user_mode_prepare()).
>
> So a first step should probably be to not introduce the per-task PTI trampoline stack,
> and stick with the existing trampoline stack. The per-task PTI trampoline stack can
> be introduced later when the page-table switch is moved deeper in the C handler and
> we can effectively sleep while using the user page-table.

Seems reasonable.

Where is the code that allocates and frees these stacks hiding?  I
think I should at least read it.