Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org designates 2620:137:e000::1:20 as permitted sender) client-ip=2620:137:e000::1:20;
Message-ID: <4c216532-2b68-dd95-93f1-542df4786d7a@intel.com>
Date:   Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:43:39 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/91.5.0
Subject: Re: [PATCH 18/35] mm: Add guard pages around a shadow stack.
Content-Language: en-US
To:     Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>, x86@kernel.org,
        "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
        linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, linux-api@vger.kernel.org,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
        Balbir Singh <bsingharora@gmail.com>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        Cyrill Gorcunov <gorcunov@gmail.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
        Eugene Syromiatnikov <esyr@redhat.com>,
        Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>,
        "H . J . Lu" <hjl.tools@gmail.com>, Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
        Mike Kravetz <mike.kravetz@oracle.com>,
        Nadav Amit <nadav.amit@gmail.com>,
        Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>, Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>,
        "Ravi V . Shankar" <ravi.v.shankar@intel.com>,
        Dave Martin <Dave.Martin@arm.com>,
        Weijiang Yang <weijiang.yang@intel.com>,
        "Kirill A . Shutemov" <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>,
        joao.moreira@intel.com, John Allen <john.allen@amd.com>,
        kcc@google.com, eranian@google.com
Cc:     Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>
References: <20220130211838.8382-1-rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
 <20220130211838.8382-19-rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
From:   Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
In-Reply-To: <20220130211838.8382-19-rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Precedence: bulk

On 1/30/22 13:18, Rick Edgecombe wrote:
> INCSSP(Q/D) increments shadow stack pointer and 'pops and discards' the
> first and the last elements in the range, effectively touches those memory
> areas.
> 
> The maximum moving distance by INCSSPQ is 255 * 8 = 2040 bytes and
> 255 * 4 = 1020 bytes by INCSSPD.  Both ranges are far from PAGE_SIZE.
> Thus, putting a gap page on both ends of a shadow stack prevents INCSSP,
> CALL, and RET from going beyond.

What is the downside of not applying this patch?  The shadow stack gap
is 1MB instead of 4k?

That, frankly, doesn't seem too bad.  How badly do we *need* this patch?