Date:   Tue, 31 Jan 2023 09:46:27 +0100
From:   David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>
To:     "Edgecombe, Rick P" <rick.p.edgecombe@...el.com>,
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Cc:     "Yu, Yu-cheng" <yu-cheng.yu@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 18/39] mm: Handle faultless write upgrades for shstk

On 28.01.23 01:51, Edgecombe, Rick P wrote:
> On Fri, 2023-01-27 at 17:12 +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> On 26.01.23 21:19, Edgecombe, Rick P wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2023-01-26 at 09:46 +0100, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>>>> On 26.01.23 01:59, Edgecombe, Rick P wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 2023-01-25 at 10:43 -0800, Rick Edgecombe wrote:
>>>>>> Thanks for your comments and ideas here, I'll give the:
>>>>>> pte_t pte_mkwrite(struct vm_area_struct *vma, pte_t pte)
>>>>>> ...solution a try.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, it turns out there are some pte_mkwrite() callers in
>>>>> other
>>>>> arch's
>>>>> that operate on kernel memory and don't have a VMA. So it
>>>>> needed a
>>>>> new
>>>>
>>>> Why not pass in NULL as VMA then and document the semantics? The
>>>> less
>>>> similarly named but slightly different functions, the better :)
>>>
>>> Hmm. The x86 and generic versions should probably have the same
>>> semantics, so then if you pass a NULL, it would do a regular
>>> pte_mkwrite() I guess?
>>>
>>> I see another benefit of requiring the vma argument, such that raw
>>> pte_mkwrite()s are less likely to appear in core MM code. But I
>>> think
>>> the NULL is awkward because it's not obvious, to me at least, what
>>> the
>>> implications of that should be.
>>>
>>> So it will be confusing to read in the NULL cases for the other
>>> archs.
>>> We also have some warnings to catch miss cases in the PTE tear down
>>> code, so the scenario of new code accidentally marking shadow stack
>>> PTEs as writable is not totally unchecked.
>>>
>>> The three functions that do slightly different things are:
>>>
>>> pte_mkwrite():
>>> Makes a PTE conventionally writable, only takes a PTE. Very clear
>>> that
>>> it is a low level helper and what it does.
>>>
>>> maybe_mkwrite():
>>> Might make a PTE writable if the VMA allows it.
>>>
>>> pte_mkwrite_vma():
>>> Makes a PTE writable in a specific way depending on the VMA
>>>
>>> I wonder if the name pte_mkwrite_vma() is maybe just not clear
>>> enough.
>>> It takes a VMA, yes, but what does it do with it?
>>>
>>> What if it was called pte_mkwrite_type() instead? Some arch's have
>>> additional types of writable memory and this function creates them.
>>> Of
>>> course they also have the normal type of writable memory, and
>>> pte_mkwrite() creates that like usual. Doesn't it seem more
>>> readable?
>>
>> The issue is, the more variants we provide the easier it is to make
>> mistakes and introduce new buggy code.
>>
>> It's tempting to simply use pte_mkwrite() and call it a day, where
>> people actually should use pte_mkwrite_vma().
>>
>> Then, they at least have to investigate what to do about the second
>> VMA
>> parameter.
> 
> Ok, I'll give it a spin. So far it looks ok. The downside is the giant
> tree-wide pte_mkwrite() signature change, but once that is over with
> there are other advantages. Like getting rid of maybe_mkwrite()'s
> awareness of shadow stack so the logic is more centralized. Please let
> me know if you don't feel comfortable with a suggested-by credit tag.

Sure ...

but I reconsidered :)

Maybe there is a cleaner way to do it and avoid the "NULL" argument.

What about having (while you're going over everything already):

pte_mkwrite(pte, vma)
pte_mkwrite_kernel(pte)

The latter would only be used in that arch code where we're working on 
kernel pgtables. We already have pte_offset_kernel() and 
pte_alloc_kernel_track(), so it's not too weird.

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb

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