Re: [PATCH 00/11] x86: Supervisor Mode Access Prevention

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Fri Sep 21 2012 - 18:12:03 EST


On 09/21/2012 03:07 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>
> Have you tested kexec in this environment?
>
> This is the kind of cpu feature that when we enable it, frequently we
> have to do something on the kexec path.
>
> At a quick skim it looks like the kexec path is using kernel page table
> entries and clearing all bits from cr4 except X86_CR4_PAE so I don't
> actually expect this change will require anything on the kexec path.
>

I have not, no, but as you quite correctly point out that shouldn't
affect things.

We should also change the kernel to start clean with CR4 -- the purpose
of CR4 is to indicate which CPU features the OS is opting into.

I think we do on x86-64 but not on x86-32 at the moment.

This is an unrelated problem, though, and can be addressed later.

-hpa
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