linux-kernel - Re: [patch 1/2] x86_64 page fault NMI-safe

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite for Android: free password hash cracker in your pocket

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20100715173836.GA17376@Krystal>
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:38:36 -0400
From:	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...tedt.homelinux.com>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>, Li Zefan <lizf@...fujitsu.com>,
	Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>,
	Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@...el.com>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@...achi.com>,
	Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@...radead.org>,
	Tom Zanussi <tzanussi@...il.com>,
	KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	"Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@...hat.com>, Tejun Heo <htejun@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [patch 1/2] x86_64 page fault NMI-safe

* Linus Torvalds (torvalds@...ux-foundation.org) wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Mathieu Desnoyers
> <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com> wrote:
> >
> > The first thing that strikes me is that we could be interrupted by a standard
> > interrupt on top of the iret instruction below.
> 
> No, that can never happen.
> 
> Why? Simple: regular interrupts aren't ever enabled in eflags. So the
> only kinds of traps we can get are NMI's (that don't follow the normal
> rules), and exceptions.

Ah, you're right, since NMIs are an intr gate, IF is disabled in the EFLAGS all
along.

> 
> Of course, if there is some trap that re-enables interrupts even if
> the trap happened in an interrupt-disabled region, then that would
> change things, but that would be a bad bug regardless (and totally
> independently of any NMI issues). So in that sense it's a "could
> happen", but it's something that would be a totally separate bug.

Yep, this kind of scenario would therefore be a bug that does not belong to the
specific realm of nmis.

Thanks,

Mathieu


-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
Operating System Efficiency R&D Consultant
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/