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authorAndy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>2014-11-11 12:49:41 -0800
committerAndy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>2015-01-02 10:22:45 -0800
commit48e08d0fb265b007ebbb29a72297ff7e40938969 (patch)
tree424a8207cc53c2b0dfbd9fb12bee15952ce822ae /Documentation/x86
parent734d16801349fbe951d2f780191d32c5b8a892d1 (diff)
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x86, entry: Switch stacks on a paranoid entry from userspace
This causes all non-NMI, non-double-fault kernel entries from userspace to run on the normal kernel stack. Double-fault is exempt to minimize confusion if we double-fault directly from userspace due to a bad kernel stack. This is, suprisingly, simpler and shorter than the current code. It removes the IMO rather frightening paranoid_userspace path, and it make sync_regs much simpler. There is no risk of stack overflow due to this change -- the kernel stack that we switch to is empty. This will also enable us to create non-atomic sections within machine checks from userspace, which will simplify memory failure handling. It will also allow the upcoming fsgsbase code to be simplified, because it doesn't need to worry about usergs when scheduling in paranoid_exit, as that code no longer exists. Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com> Cc: Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org> Cc: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com> Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/x86')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt18
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/x86_64/kernel-stacks8
2 files changed, 17 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt b/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt
index 4a1c5c2dc5a9..9132b86176a3 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt
+++ b/Documentation/x86/entry_64.txt
@@ -78,9 +78,6 @@ The expensive (paranoid) way is to read back the MSR_GS_BASE value
xorl %ebx,%ebx
1: ret
-and the whole paranoid non-paranoid macro complexity is about whether
-to suffer that RDMSR cost.
-
If we are at an interrupt or user-trap/gate-alike boundary then we can
use the faster check: the stack will be a reliable indicator of
whether SWAPGS was already done: if we see that we are a secondary
@@ -93,6 +90,15 @@ which might have triggered right after a normal entry wrote CS to the
stack but before we executed SWAPGS, then the only safe way to check
for GS is the slower method: the RDMSR.
-So we try only to mark those entry methods 'paranoid' that absolutely
-need the more expensive check for the GS base - and we generate all
-'normal' entry points with the regular (faster) entry macros.
+Therefore, super-atomic entries (except NMI, which is handled separately)
+must use idtentry with paranoid=1 to handle gsbase correctly. This
+triggers three main behavior changes:
+
+ - Interrupt entry will use the slower gsbase check.
+ - Interrupt entry from user mode will switch off the IST stack.
+ - Interrupt exit to kernel mode will not attempt to reschedule.
+
+We try to only use IST entries and the paranoid entry code for vectors
+that absolutely need the more expensive check for the GS base - and we
+generate all 'normal' entry points with the regular (faster) paranoid=0
+variant.
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/x86_64/kernel-stacks b/Documentation/x86/x86_64/kernel-stacks
index a01eec5d1d0b..e3c8a49d1a2f 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/x86_64/kernel-stacks
+++ b/Documentation/x86/x86_64/kernel-stacks
@@ -40,9 +40,11 @@ An IST is selected by a non-zero value in the IST field of an
interrupt-gate descriptor. When an interrupt occurs and the hardware
loads such a descriptor, the hardware automatically sets the new stack
pointer based on the IST value, then invokes the interrupt handler. If
-software wants to allow nested IST interrupts then the handler must
-adjust the IST values on entry to and exit from the interrupt handler.
-(This is occasionally done, e.g. for debug exceptions.)
+the interrupt came from user mode, then the interrupt handler prologue
+will switch back to the per-thread stack. If software wants to allow
+nested IST interrupts then the handler must adjust the IST values on
+entry to and exit from the interrupt handler. (This is occasionally
+done, e.g. for debug exceptions.)
Events with different IST codes (i.e. with different stacks) can be
nested. For example, a debug interrupt can safely be interrupted by an