netdev - Re: [PATCH 00/18] prevent bounds-check bypass via speculative execution

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Message-ID: <ca6f24c0-d6cf-e309-aa68-92f1378ee75a@gmail.com>
Date:   Sat, 6 Jan 2018 10:56:25 -0800
From:   Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>
To:     Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Cc:     Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>, peterz@...radead.org,
        Alan Cox <alan.cox@...el.com>,
        Srinivas Pandruvada <srinivas.pandruvada@...ux.intel.com>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@....com>,
        Solomon Peachy <pizza@...ftnet.org>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Christian Lamparter <chunkeey@...glemail.com>,
        Elena Reshetova <elena.reshetova@...el.com>,
        linux-arch@...r.kernel.org, Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>,
        "James E.J. Bottomley" <jejb@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        x86@...nel.org, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Alexey Kuznetsov <kuznet@....inr.ac.ru>,
        Zhang Rui <rui.zhang@...el.com>, linux-media@...r.kernel.org,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.com>,
        Eduardo Valentin <edubezval@...il.com>,
        Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>, qla2xxx-upstream@...gic.com,
        tglx@...utronix.de, Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...nel.org>,
        Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...ux.intel.com>,
        Kalle Valo <kvalo@...eaurora.org>, alan@...ux.intel.com,
        "Martin K. Petersen" <martin.petersen@...cle.com>,
        Hideaki YOSHIFUJI <yoshfuji@...ux-ipv6.org>,
        gregkh@...uxfoundation.org, linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        netdev@...r.kernel.org, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>,
        dan.carpenter@...cle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/18] prevent bounds-check bypass via speculative
 execution

Le 01/05/18 à 17:09, Dan Williams a écrit :
> Quoting Mark's original RFC:
> 
> "Recently, Google Project Zero discovered several classes of attack
> against speculative execution. One of these, known as variant-1, allows
> explicit bounds checks to be bypassed under speculation, providing an
> arbitrary read gadget. Further details can be found on the GPZ blog [1]
> and the Documentation patch in this series."
> 
> This series incorporates Mark Rutland's latest api and adds the x86
> specific implementation of nospec_barrier. The
> nospec_{array_ptr,ptr,barrier} helpers are then combined with a kernel
> wide analysis performed by Elena Reshetova to address static analysis
> reports where speculative execution on a userspace controlled value
> could bypass a bounds check. The patches address a precondition for the
> attack discussed in the Spectre paper [2].
> 
> A consideration worth noting for reviewing these patches is to weigh the
> dramatic cost of being wrong about whether a given report is exploitable
> vs the overhead nospec_{array_ptr,ptr} may introduce. In other words,
> lets make the bar for applying these patches be "can you prove that the
> bounds check bypass is *not* exploitable". Consider that the Spectre
> paper reports one example of a speculation window being ~180 cycles.
> 
> Note that there is also a proposal from Linus, array_access [3], that
> attempts to quash speculative execution past a bounds check without
> introducing an lfence instruction. That may be a future optimization
> possibility that is compatible with this api, but it would appear to
> need guarantees from the compiler that it is not clear the kernel can
> rely on at this point. It is also not clear that it would be a
> significant performance win vs lfence.
> 
> These patches also will also be available via the 'nospec' git branch
> here:
> 
>     git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djbw/linux nospec

Although I suppose -stable and distribution maintainers will keep a
close eye on these patches, is there a particular reason why they don't
include the relevant CVE number in their commit messages?

It sounds like Coverity was used to produce these patches? If so, is
there a plan to have smatch (hey Dan) or other open source static
analysis tool be possibly enhanced to do a similar type of work?

Thanks!
-- 
Florian