linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH] x86/mm/fault: Allow stack access below %rsp

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Date:   Sun, 4 Nov 2018 21:11:03 -0800
From:   Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>
To:     Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>
Cc:     Waiman Long <longman@...hat.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        Andrew Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] x86/mm/fault: Allow stack access below %rsp

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 3:28 PM Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/2/18 12:50 PM, Waiman Long wrote:
> > On 11/02/2018 03:44 PM, Dave Hansen wrote:
> >> On 11/2/18 12:40 PM, Waiman Long wrote:
> >>> The 64k+ limit check is kind of arbitrary. So the check is now removed
> >>> to just let expand_stack() decide if a segmentation fault should happen.
> >> With the 64k check removed, what's the next limit that we bump into?  Is
> >> it just the stack_guard_gap space above the next-lowest VMA?
> > I think it is both the stack_guard_gap space above the next lowest VMA
> > and the rlimit(RLIMIT_STACK).
>
> The gap seems to be hundreds of megabytes, typically where RLIMIT_STACK
> is 8MB by default, so RLIMIT_STACK is likely to be the practical limit
> that will be hit.  So, practically, we've taken a ~64k area that we
> would on-demand extend the stack into in one go, and turned that into a
> the full ~8MB area that you could have expanded into anyway, but all at
> once.
>
> That doesn't seem too insane, especially since we don't physically back
> the 8MB or anything.  Logically, it also seems like you *should* be able
> to touch any bit of the stack within the rlimit.
>
> But, on the other hand, as our comments say: "Accessing the stack below
> %sp is always a bug."  Have we been unsuccessful in convincing our gcc
> buddies of this?

FWIW, the old code is a bit bogus.  Why are we restricting the range
of stack expending addresses for user code without restricting the
range of kernel uaccess addresses that would do the same thing?

So I think I agree with the patch.