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authorWaiman Long <longman@redhat.com>2019-01-16 17:01:36 -0500
committerThomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>2019-01-29 22:11:49 +0100
commit71368af9027f18fe5d1c6f372cfdff7e4bde8b48 (patch)
tree71666188c5b97195fa4114674fa6e84471b2b460 /Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
parent4aa9fc2a435abe95a1e8d7f8c7b3d6356514b37a (diff)
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x86/speculation: Add PR_SPEC_DISABLE_NOEXEC
With the default SPEC_STORE_BYPASS_SECCOMP/SPEC_STORE_BYPASS_PRCTL mode, the TIF_SSBD bit will be inherited when a new task is fork'ed or cloned. It will also remain when a new program is execve'ed. Only certain class of applications (like Java) that can run on behalf of multiple users on a single thread will require disabling speculative store bypass for security purposes. Those applications will call prctl(2) at startup time to disable SSB. They won't rely on the fact the SSB might have been disabled. Other applications that don't need SSBD will just move on without checking if SSBD has been turned on or not. The fact that the TIF_SSBD is inherited across execve(2) boundary will cause performance of applications that don't need SSBD but their predecessors have SSBD on to be unwittingly impacted especially if they write to memory a lot. To remedy this problem, a new PR_SPEC_DISABLE_NOEXEC argument for the PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL option of prctl(2) is added to allow applications to specify that the SSBD feature bit on the task structure should be cleared whenever a new program is being execve'ed. Suggested-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Signed-off-by: Waiman Long <longman@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com> Cc: David Woodhouse <dwmw@amazon.co.uk> Cc: Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org> Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com> Cc: Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@linux.intel.com> Cc: KarimAllah Ahmed <karahmed@amazon.de> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Cc: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1547676096-3281-1-git-send-email-longman@redhat.com
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst27
1 files changed, 15 insertions, 12 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
index c4dbe6f7cdae..1129c7550a48 100644
--- a/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
+++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
@@ -28,18 +28,20 @@ PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL returns the state of the speculation misfeature
which is selected with arg2 of prctl(2). The return value uses bits 0-3 with
the following meaning:
-==== ===================== ===================================================
-Bit Define Description
-==== ===================== ===================================================
-0 PR_SPEC_PRCTL Mitigation can be controlled per task by
- PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL.
-1 PR_SPEC_ENABLE The speculation feature is enabled, mitigation is
- disabled.
-2 PR_SPEC_DISABLE The speculation feature is disabled, mitigation is
- enabled.
-3 PR_SPEC_FORCE_DISABLE Same as PR_SPEC_DISABLE, but cannot be undone. A
- subsequent prctl(..., PR_SPEC_ENABLE) will fail.
-==== ===================== ===================================================
+==== ====================== ==================================================
+Bit Define Description
+==== ====================== ==================================================
+0 PR_SPEC_PRCTL Mitigation can be controlled per task by
+ PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL.
+1 PR_SPEC_ENABLE The speculation feature is enabled, mitigation is
+ disabled.
+2 PR_SPEC_DISABLE The speculation feature is disabled, mitigation is
+ enabled.
+3 PR_SPEC_FORCE_DISABLE Same as PR_SPEC_DISABLE, but cannot be undone. A
+ subsequent prctl(..., PR_SPEC_ENABLE) will fail.
+4 PR_SPEC_DISABLE_NOEXEC Same as PR_SPEC_DISABLE, but the state will be
+ cleared on :manpage:`execve(2)`.
+==== ====================== ==================================================
If all bits are 0 the CPU is not affected by the speculation misfeature.
@@ -92,6 +94,7 @@ Speculation misfeature controls
* prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, PR_SPEC_ENABLE, 0, 0);
* prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, PR_SPEC_DISABLE, 0, 0);
* prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, PR_SPEC_FORCE_DISABLE, 0, 0);
+ * prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, PR_SPEC_DISABLE_NOEXEC, 0, 0);
- PR_SPEC_INDIR_BRANCH: Indirect Branch Speculation in User Processes
(Mitigate Spectre V2 style attacks against user processes)