linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/3] x86/mm/pti: Don't clear permissions in pti_clone

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Tue, 7 Aug 2018 22:21:03 +0200 (CEST)
From:   Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
To:     Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>
cc:     Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Joerg Roedel <joro@...tes.org>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        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>,
        "Liguori, Anthony" <aliguori@...zon.com>,
        Daniel Gruss <daniel.gruss@...k.tugraz.at>,
        Hugh Dickins <hughd@...gle.com>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...gle.com>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Waiman Long <llong@...hat.com>, Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>,
        "David H . Gutteridge" <dhgutteridge@...patico.ca>,
        Joerg Roedel <jroedel@...e.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/3] x86/mm/pti: Don't clear permissions in
 pti_clone_pmd()

On Tue, 7 Aug 2018, Andy Lutomirski wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com> wrote:
> > On 08/07/2018 03:24 AM, Joerg Roedel wrote:
> >> The function sets the global-bit on cloned PMD entries,
> >> which only makes sense when the permissions are identical
> >> between the user and the kernel page-table.
> >>
> >> Further, only write-permissions are cleared for entry-text
> >> and kernel-text sections, which are not writeable anyway.
> >
> > I think this patch is correct, but I'd be curious if Andy remembers why
> > we chose to clear _PAGE_RW on these things.  It might have been that we
> > were trying to say that the *entry* code shouldn't write to this stuff,
> > regardless of whether the normal kernel can.
> >
> > But, either way, I agree with the logic here that Global pages must
> > share permissions between both mappings, so feel free to add my Ack.  I
> > just want to make sure Andy doesn't remember some detail I'm forgetting.
> 
> I suspect it's because we used to (and maybe still do) initialize the
> user tables before mark_read_only().

We still do that because we need the entry stuff working for interrupts
early on. We now repeat the clone after mark_ro so the mask RW is not
longer required.

Thanks,

	tglx