linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 17/19] qla2xxx: prevent bounds-check bypass via speculative execution

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Date:   Thu, 11 Jan 2018 21:38:18 -0800
From:   Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
To:     James Bottomley <jejb@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc:     Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
        "Martin K. Petersen" <martin.petersen@...cle.com>,
        linux-scsi <linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org>,
        kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com, qla2xxx-upstream@...gic.com,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Elena Reshetova <elena.reshetova@...el.com>,
        Alan Cox <alan@...ux.intel.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 17/19] qla2xxx: prevent bounds-check bypass via
 speculative execution

On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 5:19 PM, James Bottomley
<jejb@...ux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2018-01-11 at 16:47 -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
>> Static analysis reports that 'handle' may be a user controlled value
>> that is used as a data dependency to read 'sp' from the
>> 'req->outstanding_cmds' array.
>
> Greg already told you it comes from hardware, specifically the hardware
> response queue.  If you don't believe him, I can confirm it's quite
> definitely all copied from the iomem where the mailbox response is, so
> it can't be a user controlled value (well, unless the user has some
> influence over the firmware of the qla2xxx  controller, which probably
> means you have other things to worry about than speculative information
> leaks).

I do believe him, and I still submitted this. I'm trying to probe at
the meta question of where do we draw the line with these especially
when it costs us relatively little to apply a few line patch? We fix
theoretical lockdep races, why not theoretical data leak paths?