From: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
To: Yang Weijiang <weijiang.yang@intel.com>,
"Gao, Chao" <chao.gao@intel.com>,
"Edgecombe, Rick P" <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>,
Maxim Levitsky <mlevitsk@redhat.com>,
John Allen <john.allen@amd.com>,
LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
pbonzini@redhat.com, peterz@infradead.org, john.allen@amd.com,
kvm@vger.kernel.org, binbin.wu@linux.intel.com,
Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
"Bae, Chang Seok" <chang.seok.bae@intel.com>,
"Mehta, Sohil" <sohil.mehta@intel.com>
Subject: Kernel Shadow Stacks Versus XFEATURE_MASK_GUEST_SUPERVISOR
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2026 12:03:43 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <2f0560df-69fc-4fc1-81fa-447e289ec2df@intel.com> (raw)
So, I'm working on kernel shadow stacks. I have some nice optimization
code like fred_update_rsp0() for SSP0. It avoids WRMSR's on exits to
userspace if FRED_SSP0 hasn't changed, just like FRED_RSP0.
Well, turns out that FRED_SSP0 isn't like FRED_RSP0 in one very
important way: it is an alias for PL0_SSP, which is managed via
XFEATURE_CET_KERNEL which is in:
/* Supervisor features which are enabled only in guest FPUs */
#define XFEATURE_MASK_GUEST_SUPERVISOR XFEATURE_MASK_CET_KERNEL
So, I was running along just fine in my nice shadow stack kernel going
in and out of the kernel just fine. But the first time I did an XRSTOR,
the XFEATURE_CET_KERNEL feature got set to its init state. My SSP0 cache
didn't notice and I tried to run userspace with SSP0=0. Much hilarity
ensued on the next kernel entry.
The most adorable part of all this is that I have KVM compiled
completely out on my config. The "only in guest FPUs" code is biting me
on a kernel that can't even run guests.
I think this all started because of 8b05b3c98816 ("x86/fpu/xstate: Add
CET supervisor xfeature support as a guest-only feature"), which seems
like mostly my doing. So I have mostly myself to blame.
Any thoughts on what we should do?
Actually context switching XFEATURE_CET_KERNEL seems kinda silly in a
lot of ways. PL0_SSP can always be derived _and_ it isn't actually even
needed at context switch time, only when running userspace.
I could just aggressively blow away my SSP0 cache any time an XRSTOR
touches XFEATURE_CET_KERNEL. That would be easy. But it also seems silly
that XFEATURE_CET_KERNEL is being blown away at _all_ during normal
context switches. Heck, it goes further than that because:
fpregs_restore_userregs() does:
restore_fpregs_from_fpstate(fpu->fpstate,
XFEATURE_MASK_FPSTATE);
Where XFEATURE_MASK_FPSTATE contains XFEATURE_MASK_SUPERVISOR_SUPPORTED.
So a "restore_userregs" function is blowing away supervisor state.
IOW, I think we're using XFEATURE_MASK_FPSTATE a bit too broadly.
I'd like to get to a place where only the KVM code even has
XFEATURE_CET_KERNEL in its RFBM.
Anybody have any bright ideas?
next reply other threads:[~2026-10-23 19:03 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-10-23 19:03 Dave Hansen [this message]
2026-10-23 21:00 ` Paolo Bonzini
2026-10-23 21:21 ` Dave Hansen
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