linux-kernel - Re: [tip:x86/pti] x86/speculation: Use IBRS if available before calling into firmware

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Date:   Mon, 12 Feb 2018 14:06:40 +0100
From:   Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:     David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
Cc:     Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Thomas Mingarelli <thomas.mingarelli@....com>, hpa@...or.com,
        tglx@...utronix.de, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-tip-commits@...r.kernel.org,
        Dave Hansen <dave@...1.net>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [tip:x86/pti] x86/speculation: Use IBRS if available before
 calling into firmware

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 12:27:19PM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Mon, 2018-02-12 at 12:50 +0100, Peter Zijlstra wrote:

> > Wait, we're doing firmware from NMI? That sounds like a _REALLY_ bad
> > idea.
> 
> And spin_lock_irqsave() too. Which is probably why I missed the fact
> that this was being called in NMI context.
> 
> Yay for HP and their persistent attempts to "value subtract" in their
> firmware offerings.
> 
> I'm tempted to drop that part of the patch and declare that if you're
> using this driver, the potential for stray branch prediction when you
> call into the firmware from the NMI handler is the *least* of your
> problems.

We should probably mark it BROKEN or something, or move it into staging.