linux-kernel - [PATCH 12/12] x86, pkeys: Documentation

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Message-Id: <20150507174136.B2297B84@viggo.jf.intel.com>
Date:	Thu, 07 May 2015 10:41:36 -0700
From:	Dave Hansen <dave@...1.net>
To:	dave@...1.net
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org
Subject: [PATCH 12/12] x86, pkeys: Documentation



---

 b/Documentation/x86/protection-keys.txt |   22 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+)

diff -puN /dev/null Documentation/x86/protection-keys.txt
--- /dev/null	2015-05-06 22:34:35.845652580 -0700
+++ b/Documentation/x86/protection-keys.txt	2015-05-07 10:31:45.360366611 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+Memory Protection Keys for Userspace (PKU aka PKEYs) is a CPU
+feature which will be found in future Intel CPUs.  The work here
+was done with the aid of simulators.
+
+Memory Protection Keys provides a mechanism for enforcing
+page-based protections, but without requiring modification of the
+page tables when an application changes protection domains.  It
+works by dedicating 4 previously ignored bits in each page table
+entry to a “protection key”, giving 16 possible keys.
+
+There is also a new user-accessible register (PKRU) with two
+separate bits (Access Disable and Write Disable) for each key.
+Being a CPU register, PKRU is inherently thread-local,
+potentially giving each thread a different set of protections
+from every other thread.
+
+There are two new instructions (RDPKRU/WRPKRU) for reading and
+writing to the new register.  The feature is only available in
+64-bit mode, even though there is theoretically space in the PAE
+PTEs.  These permissions are enforced on data access only and
+have no effect on instruction fetches.
+
_
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