diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/x86/pti.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/x86/pti.txt | 186 |
1 files changed, 186 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/pti.txt b/Documentation/x86/pti.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..d11eff61fc9a --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/x86/pti.txt @@ -0,0 +1,186 @@ +Overview +======== + +Page Table Isolation (pti, previously known as KAISER[1]) is a +countermeasure against attacks on the shared user/kernel address +space such as the "Meltdown" approach[2]. + +To mitigate this class of attacks, we create an independent set of +page tables for use only when running userspace applications. When +the kernel is entered via syscalls, interrupts or exceptions, the +page tables are switched to the full "kernel" copy. When the system +switches back to user mode, the user copy is used again. + +The userspace page tables contain only a minimal amount of kernel +data: only what is needed to enter/exit the kernel such as the +entry/exit functions themselves and the interrupt descriptor table +(IDT). There are a few strictly unnecessary things that get mapped +such as the first C function when entering an interrupt (see +comments in pti.c). + +This approach helps to ensure that side-channel attacks leveraging +the paging structures do not function when PTI is enabled. It can be +enabled by setting CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_ISOLATION=y at compile time. +Once enabled at compile-time, it can be disabled at boot with the +'nopti' or 'pti=' kernel parameters (see kernel-parameters.txt). + +Page Table Management +===================== + +When PTI is enabled, the kernel manages two sets of page tables. +The first set is very similar to the single set which is present in +kernels without PTI. This includes a complete mapping of userspace +that the kernel can use for things like copy_to_user(). + +Although _complete_, the user portion of the kernel page tables is +crippled by setting the NX bit in the top level. This ensures +that any missed kernel->user CR3 switch will immediately crash +userspace upon executing its first instruction. + +The userspace page tables map only the kernel data needed to enter +and exit the kernel. This data is entirely contained in the 'struct +cpu_entry_area' structure which is placed in the fixmap which gives +each CPU's copy of the area a compile-time-fixed virtual address. + +For new userspace mappings, the kernel makes the entries in its +page tables like normal. The only difference is when the kernel +makes entries in the top (PGD) level. In addition to setting the +entry in the main kernel PGD, a copy of the entry is made in the +userspace page tables' PGD. + +This sharing at the PGD level also inherently shares all the lower +layers of the page tables. This leaves a single, shared set of +userspace page tables to manage. One PTE to lock, one set of +accessed bits, dirty bits, etc... + +Overhead +======== + +Protection against side-channel attacks is important. But, +this protection comes at a cost: + +1. Increased Memory Use + a. Each process now needs an order-1 PGD instead of order-0. + (Consumes an additional 4k per process). + b. The 'cpu_entry_area' structure must be 2MB in size and 2MB + aligned so that it can be mapped by setting a single PMD + entry. This consumes nearly 2MB of RAM once the kernel + is decompressed, but no space in the kernel image itself. + +2. Runtime Cost + a. CR3 manipulation to switch between the page table copies + must be done at interrupt, syscall, and exception entry + and exit (it can be skipped when the kernel is interrupted, + though.) Moves to CR3 are on the order of a hundred + cycles, and are required at every entry and exit. + b. A "trampoline" must be used for SYSCALL entry. This + trampoline depends on a smaller set of resources than the + non-PTI SYSCALL entry code, so requires mapping fewer + things into the userspace page tables. The downside is + that stacks must be switched at entry time. + d. Global pages are disabled for all kernel structures not + mapped into both kernel and userspace page tables. This + feature of the MMU allows different processes to share TLB + entries mapping the kernel. Losing the feature means more + TLB misses after a context switch. The actual loss of + performance is very small, however, never exceeding 1%. + d. Process Context IDentifiers (PCID) is a CPU feature that + allows us to skip flushing the entire TLB when switching page + tables by setting a special bit in CR3 when the page tables + are changed. This makes switching the page tables (at context + switch, or kernel entry/exit) cheaper. But, on systems with + PCID support, the context switch code must flush both the user + and kernel entries out of the TLB. The user PCID TLB flush is + deferred until the exit to userspace, minimizing the cost. + See intel.com/sdm for the gory PCID/INVPCID details. + e. The userspace page tables must be populated for each new + process. Even without PTI, the shared kernel mappings + are created by copying top-level (PGD) entries into each + new process. But, with PTI, there are now *two* kernel + mappings: one in the kernel page tables that maps everything + and one for the entry/exit structures. At fork(), we need to + copy both. + f. In addition to the fork()-time copying, there must also + be an update to the userspace PGD any time a set_pgd() is done + on a PGD used to map userspace. This ensures that the kernel + and userspace copies always map the same userspace + memory. + g. On systems without PCID support, each CR3 write flushes + the entire TLB. That means that each syscall, interrupt + or exception flushes the TLB. + h. INVPCID is a TLB-flushing instruction which allows flushing + of TLB entries for non-current PCIDs. Some systems support + PCIDs, but do not support INVPCID. On these systems, addresses + can only be flushed from the TLB for the current PCID. When + flushing a kernel address, we need to flush all PCIDs, so a + single kernel address flush will require a TLB-flushing CR3 + write upon the next use of every PCID. + +Possible Future Work +==================== +1. We can be more careful about not actually writing to CR3 + unless its value is actually changed. +2. Allow PTI to be enabled/disabled at runtime in addition to the + boot-time switching. + +Testing +======== + +To test stability of PTI, the following test procedure is recommended, +ideally doing all of these in parallel: + +1. Set CONFIG_DEBUG_ENTRY=y +2. Run several copies of all of the tools/testing/selftests/x86/ tests + (excluding MPX and protection_keys) in a loop on multiple CPUs for + several minutes. These tests frequently uncover corner cases in the + kernel entry code. In general, old kernels might cause these tests + themselves to crash, but they should never crash the kernel. +3. Run the 'perf' tool in a mode (top or record) that generates many + frequent performance monitoring non-maskable interrupts (see "NMI" + in /proc/interrupts). This exercises the NMI entry/exit code which + is known to trigger bugs in code paths that did not expect to be + interrupted, including nested NMIs. Using "-c" boosts the rate of + NMIs, and using two -c with separate counters encourages nested NMIs + and less deterministic behavior. + + while true; do perf record -c 10000 -e instructions,cycles -a sleep 10; done + +4. Launch a KVM virtual machine. +5. Run 32-bit binaries on systems supporting the SYSCALL instruction. + This has been a lightly-tested code path and needs extra scrutiny. + +Debugging +========= + +Bugs in PTI cause a few different signatures of crashes +that are worth noting here. + + * Failures of the selftests/x86 code. Usually a bug in one of the + more obscure corners of entry_64.S + * Crashes in early boot, especially around CPU bringup. Bugs + in the trampoline code or mappings cause these. + * Crashes at the first interrupt. Caused by bugs in entry_64.S, + like screwing up a page table switch. Also caused by + incorrectly mapping the IRQ handler entry code. + * Crashes at the first NMI. The NMI code is separate from main + interrupt handlers and can have bugs that do not affect + normal interrupts. Also caused by incorrectly mapping NMI + code. NMIs that interrupt the entry code must be very + careful and can be the cause of crashes that show up when + running perf. + * Kernel crashes at the first exit to userspace. entry_64.S + bugs, or failing to map some of the exit code. + * Crashes at first interrupt that interrupts userspace. The paths + in entry_64.S that return to userspace are sometimes separate + from the ones that return to the kernel. + * Double faults: overflowing the kernel stack because of page + faults upon page faults. Caused by touching non-pti-mapped + data in the entry code, or forgetting to switch to kernel + CR3 before calling into C functions which are not pti-mapped. + * Userspace segfaults early in boot, sometimes manifesting + as mount(8) failing to mount the rootfs. These have + tended to be TLB invalidation issues. Usually invalidating + the wrong PCID, or otherwise missing an invalidation. + +1. https://gruss.cc/files/kaiser.pdf +2. https://meltdownattack.com/meltdown.pdf |