linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86/asm/entry/64: better check for canonical address

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Date:	Thu, 2 Apr 2015 20:10:11 +0200
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
To:	Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@...hat.com>
Cc:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, x86@...nel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86/asm/entry/64: better check for canonical address


* Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@...hat.com> wrote:

> On 03/26/2015 01:42 PM, Denys Vlasenko wrote:
> > This change makes the check exact (no more false positives
> > on kernel addresses).
> > 
> > It isn't really important to be fully correct here -
> > almost all addresses we'll ever see will be userspace ones,
> > but OTOH it looks to be cheap enough:
> > the new code uses two more ALU ops but preserves %rcx,
> > allowing to not reload it from pt_regs->cx again.
> > On disassembly level, the changes are:
> > 
> > cmp %rcx,0x80(%rsp) -> mov 0x80(%rsp),%r11; cmp %rcx,%r11
> > shr $0x2f,%rcx      -> shl $0x10,%rcx; sar $0x10,%rcx; cmp %rcx,%r11
> > mov 0x58(%rsp),%rcx -> (eliminated)
> 
> 
> 
> >  	.ifne __VIRTUAL_MASK_SHIFT - 47
> >  	.error "virtual address width changed -- sysret checks need update"
> >  	.endif
> > -	shr $__VIRTUAL_MASK_SHIFT, %rcx
> > -	jnz opportunistic_sysret_failed
> > +	/* Change top 16 bits to be a sign-extension of the rest */
> > +	shl	$(64 - (__VIRTUAL_MASK_SHIFT+1)), %rcx
> > +	sar	$(64 - (__VIRTUAL_MASK_SHIFT+1)), %rcx
> > +	/* If this changed %rcx, it was not canonical */
> > +	cmpq	%rcx, %r11
> > +	jne	opportunistic_sysret_failed
> 
> 
> Another thing we can do here is to just canonicalize the address.
> IOW: same code as above but without last two insns.
> 
> The difference would be that if userspace gives us bogus,
> noncanonical return address, we would return to a different address
> instead of SIGSEGV.

So in general it's better to be proactive with such things and 
generate an error as early as possible, making it easier to debug 
user-space bugs.

> There is no security implications in doing this as far as I can see,
> and no sane program uses noncanonical addresses.
> Apart from not having any legitimate need to do so, it's also quite
> complicated to achieve.
> 
> So it should not break any real-world cases.

It would make user-space debugging harder though, so it's a quality of 
implmentation issue.

Thanks,

	Ingo
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