linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] xen: core dom0 support

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Message-ID: <20090308220609.GA23447@elte.hu>
Date:	Sun, 8 Mar 2009 23:06:09 +0100
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Cc:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Xen-devel <xen-devel@...ts.xensource.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] xen: core dom0 support


* H. Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com> wrote:

> Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > 
> > Associativity effects do depend on the kernel image layout 
> > and on the precise allocations of kernel data structure 
> > allocations we do during bootup - and they dont really 
> > change after that.
> > 
> 
> By the way, there is a really easy way (if a bit time 
> consuming) to get the actual variability here -- you have to 
> reboot between runs, even for the same kernel.  It makes the 
> data collection take a long time, but at least it can be 
> scripted.

Since it's the same kernel image i think the only truly reliable 
method would be to reboot between _different_ kernel images: 
same instructions but randomly re-align variables both in terms 
of absolute address and in terms of relative position to each 
other. Plus randomize bootmem allocs and never-gets-freed-really 
boot-time allocations.

Really hard to do i think ...

	Ingo
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