linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v19 2/8] Documentation: userspace-api: Add shadow stack API documentation

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] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <fb515d1f-beb2-4adb-933d-c9612949ae36@infradead.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:15:08 -0700
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>, 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>, jannh@...gle.com,
 Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
 Yury Khrustalev <yury.khrustalev@....com>,
 Wilco Dijkstra <wilco.dijkstra@....com>, linux-kselftest@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-api@...r.kernel.org, Kees Cook <kees@...nel.org>,
 Shuah Khan <skhan@...uxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v19 2/8] Documentation: userspace-api: Add shadow stack
 API documentation

On 8/19/25 9:21 AM, 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.
> 

> ---
>  Documentation/userspace-api/index.rst        |  1 +
>  Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst | 44 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 45 insertions(+)
> 

> diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst
> new file mode 100644
> index 000000000000..65c665496624
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/shadow_stack.rst
> @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
> +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> +
> +=============
> +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

$internet says "writable"

> +is referred to as shadow stacks on Linux, on x86 it is part of Intel

                                      Linux. On

> +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

> +
> +
> +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()
> + - For other architectures the PR_SET_SHADOW_STACK_ENABLE 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
> +themselves have shadow stacks enabled.
> +
> +
> +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.
> +- Those that change the stack context like longjmp() or use of ucontext
> +  changes on signal return will need support from libc.
> 
-- 
~Randy