linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86: Kill some chicken bits

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Date:	Wed, 21 Oct 2015 01:09:12 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
Cc:	X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86: Kill some chicken bits

On 10/20/2015 10:04 AM, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 09:58:18AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> I would like to keep nosmap until SMAP hardware is more ubiquitous
>> since SMAP is vulnerable to kernel bugs. We have already had a case
>> where a maintainer pushed "cleanup" code straight to Linus, bypassing
>> the x86 maintainers, which broke booting on SMAP hardware.
> 
> Right, so the thought came to my mind while going through those, that we
> don't really know what they're going to be good for and what we're going
> to need them for in the future. So maybe we want to keep them after all
> - you never know.
> 
> For example, luto made me use "nosep" recently even though that's an
> ancient chicken bit.
> 
> So maybe we want to not remove them ever - the cleanup win is not that
> great to even care...
> 

Some chicken bits may be better than others, though.

	-hpa

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