linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86/retpoline/entry: Disable the entire SYSCALL64 fast path with retpolines on

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Date:   Thu, 25 Jan 2018 13:53:53 -0800
From:   Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:     Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
Cc:     Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        "the arch/x86 maintainers" <x86@...nel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Alan Cox <alan@...ux.intel.com>, Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
        Samuel Neves <samuel.c.p.neves@...il.com>,
        Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86/retpoline/entry: Disable the entire SYSCALL64 fast
 path with retpolines on

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 1:39 PM, Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com> wrote:
>
> If you're rejiggering, can we also put in a mechanism for detecting
> which registers to clear so that userspace can't inject useful values
> into speculation paths?

That actually becomes trivial with just the "no fastpath" patch I sent
out. You can just clear all of them.

Sure, then do_syscall_64() will reload the six first ones, but since
those are the argument registers anyway, and since they are
caller-clobbered, they have very short lifetimes. So it would
effectively not really be an issue.

But yes, SYSCALL_DEFINEx() rejiggery would close even that tiny hole.

                   Linus