linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 01/56] Documentation/admin-guide: Add documentation

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Message-ID: <20251018133913.GHaPOYgR0YNlz-KexS@fat_crate.local>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2025 15:39:13 +0200
From: Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
To: David Kaplan <david.kaplan@....com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...nel.org>,
	Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@...ux.intel.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>, x86@...nel.org,
	"H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Alexander Graf <graf@...zon.com>,
	Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@...cle.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 01/56] Documentation/admin-guide: Add documentation

On Mon, Oct 13, 2025 at 09:33:49AM -0500, David Kaplan wrote:
> +Move Policy To Userspace
> +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> +
> +Mitigation choices are related to the security policy and posture of the system.
> +Most mitigations are only necessary on shared, multi-user systems if untrusted
> +code may be run on the system, such as through untrusted userspace or untrusted
> +virtual machines.  The kernel may not know how the system will be used on boot,
									^^^^^^^^^^

"after it has been booted" I'd say.

> +and therefore must adopt a strong security posture for safety.
> +
> +With dynamic mitigations, userspace can re-select mitigations once the needs of
> +the system can be determined and more policy information is available.
> +
> +Mitigation Testing
> +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> +
> +Dynamic mitigation support makes it easy to toggle individual mitigations or
> +choose between different mitigation options without the expense of a reboot or
> +kexec.  This may be useful when evaluating the performance of various
> +mitigation options.  It can also be useful for performing bug fixes without a

"for fixing bugs in the mitigations themselves" - simpler

> +reboot, in case a particular mitigation is undesired or buggy.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

https://people.kernel.org/tglx/notes-about-netiquette