linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFT v5 1/7] Documentation: userspace-api: Add shadow stack API documentation

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Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2024 17:33:02 -0800
From: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>
To: Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>,
 "Rick P. Edgecombe" <rick.p.edgecombe@...el.com>,
 Deepak Gupta <debug@...osinc.com>, Szabolcs Nagy <Szabolcs.Nagy@....com>,
 "H.J. Lu" <hjl.tools@...il.com>, Florian Weimer <fweimer@...hat.com>,
 Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
 Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
 x86@...nel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
 Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>, Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@...hat.com>,
 Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@...aro.org>,
 Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@....com>,
 Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>, Ben Segall <bsegall@...gle.com>,
 Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>, Daniel Bristot de Oliveira
 <bristot@...hat.com>, Valentin Schneider <vschneid@...hat.com>,
 Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>, Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@....com>,
 Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
 jannh@...gle.com, linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org, linux-api@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFT v5 1/7] Documentation: userspace-api: Add shadow stack
 API documentation

Hi,

On 2/2/24 16:04, Mark Brown wrote:
> There are a number of architectures with shadow stack features which we are
> presenting to userspace with as consistent an API as we can (though there
> are some architecture specifics). Especially given that there are some
> important considerations for userspace code interacting directly with the
> feature let's provide some documentation covering the common aspects.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>
> ---
>  Documentation/userspace-api/index.rst        |  1 +
>  Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst | 41 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 42 insertions(+)
> 

> diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..c6e5ab795b60
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst
> @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
> +=============
> +Shadow Stacks
> +=============
> +
> +Introduction
> +============
> +
> +Several architectures have features which provide backward edge
> +control flow protection through a hardware maintained stack, only
> +writeable by userspace through very limited operations.  This feature
> +is referred to as shadow stacks on Linux, on x86 it is part of Intel

                                   on Linux. On x86

> +Control Enforcement Technology (CET), on arm64 it is Guarded Control
> +Stacks feature (FEAT_GCS) and for RISC-V it is the Zicfiss extension.> +It is expected that this feature will normally be managed by the
> +system dynamic linker and libc in ways broadly transparent to
> +application code, this document covers interfaces and considerations

               code. This                                considerations.

> +
> +
> +Enabling
> +========
> +
> +Shadow stacks default to disabled when a userspace process is
> +executed, they can be enabled for the current thread with a syscall:

   executed. They

> +
> + - For x86 the ARCH_SHSTK_ENABLE arch_prctl()
> +
> +It is expected that this will normally be done by the dynamic linker.
> +Any new threads created by a thread with shadow stacks enabled will
> +themsleves have shadow stacks enabled.

   themselves

> +
> +
> +Enablement considerations
> +=========================
> +
> +- Returning from the function that enables shadow stacks without first
> +  disabling them will cause a shadow stack exception.  This includes
> +  any syscall wrapper or other library functions, the syscall will need

                                          functions. The

> +  to be inlined.
> +- A lock feature allows userspace to prevent disabling of shadow stacks.
> +- This that change the stack context like longjmp() or use of ucontext

     Those
?

> +  changes on signal return will need support from libc.
> 

-- 
#Randy