linux-kernel - Re: [RFC 05/10] x86/speculation: Add basic IBRS support infrastructure

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Date:   Mon, 22 Jan 2018 14:30:16 +0100
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     Borislav Petkov <bp@...e.de>
Cc:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        KarimAllah Ahmed <karahmed@...zon.de>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...ux.intel.com>,
        Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@...el.com>,
        Asit Mallick <asit.k.mallick@...el.com>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        David Woodhouse <dwmw@...zon.co.uk>,
        "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Janakarajan Natarajan <Janakarajan.Natarajan@....com>,
        Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org>,
        Jun Nakajima <jun.nakajima@...el.com>,
        Laura Abbott <labbott@...hat.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        Radim Krčmář <rkrcmar@...hat.com>,
        Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@....com>, kvm@...r.kernel.org,
        x86@...nel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC 05/10] x86/speculation: Add basic IBRS support
 infrastructure

On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 01:06:18PM +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 10:51:53AM +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> > That wouldn't be enough; AFAIU there's people with this stuff already
> > flashed in their BIOS. So the kernel needs to deal with it one way or
> > another.
> 
> Not a lot we can do there except maybe disable IBRS on those and users
> can go and complain to their BIOS vendor to give them a downgrade or
> they can downgrade themselves.
> 
> If we had free BIOS, this would've been a whole different story...

We kind of do, you can submit patches to UEFI, but I doubt that the
processor-specific portions are actually present in the Tianocore code
to be able to be patched.

What about LinuxBoot <https://linuxboot.org>, does it too take over too
late in the boot process to control this?

thanks,

greg k-h