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authorIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>2016-04-13 11:36:44 +0200
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>2016-04-13 11:36:44 +0200
commit95a8e746f82bdda5d8a443b6557c930782d65b86 (patch)
tree6047fecc66e133c10d04be7b0bec89069c3e1654 /Documentation/x86/protection-keys.txt
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Merge branch 'x86/urgent' into x86/asm to pick up dependent fixes
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
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+Memory Protection Keys for Userspace (PKU aka PKEYs) is a CPU feature
+which will be found on future Intel CPUs.
+
+Memory Protection Keys provides a mechanism for enforcing page-based
+protections, but without requiring modification of the page tables
+when an application changes protection domains. It works by
+dedicating 4 previously ignored bits in each page table entry to a
+"protection key", giving 16 possible keys.
+
+There is also a new user-accessible register (PKRU) with two separate
+bits (Access Disable and Write Disable) for each key. Being a CPU
+register, PKRU is inherently thread-local, potentially giving each
+thread a different set of protections from every other thread.
+
+There are two new instructions (RDPKRU/WRPKRU) for reading and writing
+to the new register. The feature is only available in 64-bit mode,
+even though there is theoretically space in the PAE PTEs. These
+permissions are enforced on data access only and have no effect on
+instruction fetches.
+
+=========================== Config Option ===========================
+
+This config option adds approximately 1.5kb of text. and 50 bytes of
+data to the executable. A workload which does large O_DIRECT reads
+of holes in XFS files was run to exercise get_user_pages_fast(). No
+performance delta was observed with the config option
+enabled or disabled.