linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 05/39] x86/entry/32: Unshare NMI return path

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Date:   Fri, 13 Jul 2018 12:05:19 +0200
From:   Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org>
To:     Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>
Cc:     Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, x86@...nel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>,
        Juergen Gross <jgross@...e.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>,
        Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@...cle.com>,
        Brian Gerst <brgerst@...il.com>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@...hat.com>,
        Eduardo Valentin <eduval@...zon.com>,
        Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>, aliguori@...zon.com,
        daniel.gruss@...k.tugraz.at, hughd@...gle.com, keescook@...gle.com,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Waiman Long <llong@...hat.com>, Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>,
        "David H . Gutteridge" <dhgutteridge@...patico.ca>, jroedel@...e.de
Subject: Re: [PATCH 05/39] x86/entry/32: Unshare NMI return path

On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 01:53:19PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > On Jul 11, 2018, at 4:29 AM, Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org> wrote:
> > NMI will no longer use most of the shared return path,
> > because NMI needs special handling when the CR3 switches for
> > PTI are added.
> 
> Why?  What would go wrong?
> 
> How many return-to-usermode paths will we have?  64-bit has only one.

In the non-NMI return path we make a decission on whether we return to
user-space or kernel-space and do different things based on that. For
example, when returning to user-space we call
prepare_exit_to_usermode(). With the CR3 switches added later we also
unconditionally switch to user-cr3 when we are in the return-to-user
path.

The NMI return path does not need any of that, as it doesn't call
prepare_exit_to_usermode() even when it returns to user-space. It
doesn't even care where it returns to. It just remembers stack and cr3
on entry in callee-safed registers and restores that on exit. This works
in the NMI path because it is pretty simple and doesn't do any fancy
work on exit.

While working on a previous version I also tried to store stack and cr3
in a callee-safed register and restore that on exit again, but it didn't
work, most likley because something in-between overwrote one of the
registers. I also found it a bit fragile to make make two registers
untouchable in the whole entry-code. It doesn't make future changes
simpler or more robust.

So long story short, the NMI path can be simpler wrt. stack and cr3
handling as the other entry/exit points, and therefore it is handled
differently.

Regards,

	Joerg