From: Kim Phillips <kim.phillips@amd.com>
To: <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>, <x86@kernel.org>
Cc: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>,
Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>,
K Prateek Nayak <kprateek.nayak@amd.com>,
"Nikunj A Dadhania" <nikunj@amd.com>,
Tom Lendacky <thomas.lendacky@amd.com>,
"Michael Roth" <michael.roth@amd.com>,
Borislav Petkov <borislav.petkov@amd.com>,
Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>, Naveen Rao <naveen.rao@amd.com>,
David Kaplan <david.kaplan@amd.com>,
Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>,
"Dave Hansen" <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
Kim Phillips <kim.phillips@amd.com>,
Nathan Fontenot <nathan.fontenot@amd.com>, <stable@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH v2] x86/bugs: Don't say no mitigation available if kernel not compiled with retpoline
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:09:16 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260831210916.987152-1-kim.phillips@amd.com> (raw)
When the kernel lacks retpoline support, spectre_v2_select_retpoline()
emits
"Kernel not compiled with retpoline; no mitigation available!"
before returning SPECTRE_V2_NONE to its callers. SPECTRE_V2_NONE is not
the final answer, though: spectre_v2_update_mitigation() runs afterwards
and can still upgrade the mitigation.
On an Intel CPU affected by RETBleed, built with
CONFIG_MITIGATION_IBRS_ENTRY=y and CONFIG_MITIGATION_RETPOLINE=n, and
booted with spectre_v2=auto, retbleed_select_mitigation() picks
RETBLEED_MITIGATION_IBRS, and spectre_v2_update_mitigation() then promotes
SPECTRE_V2_NONE to SPECTRE_V2_IBRS. The boot log claims no mitigation is
available immediately before reporting "Spectre V2 : Mitigation: IBRS",
and sysfs reports the machine as mitigated. The message is alarming and
simply wrong.
Drop "no mitigation available!" because the final mitigation state is
printed afterwards in spectre_v2_update_mitigation() anyway.
Suggested-by: Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>
Fixes: 480e803dacf8 ("x86/bugs: Restructure spectre_v2 mitigation")
Cc: stable@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Kim Phillips <kim.phillips@amd.com>
Assisted-by: ClaudeCode:claude-opus-4-7
---
arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
index 56eac5611c31..5a0533a41d30 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
@@ -1957,7 +1957,7 @@ early_param("spectre_v2", spectre_v2_parse_cmdline);
static enum spectre_v2_mitigation __init spectre_v2_select_retpoline(void)
{
if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_MITIGATION_RETPOLINE)) {
- pr_err("Kernel not compiled with retpoline; no mitigation available!");
+ pr_err("Kernel not compiled with retpoline");
return SPECTRE_V2_NONE;
}
--
2.43.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-08-31 21:10 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-08-31 21:09 Kim Phillips [this message]
2026-09-01 17:01 ` Pawan Gupta
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