Re: [PATCH] x86/uaccess: Use pointer masking to limit uaccess speculation

From: Josh Poimboeuf
Date: Fri Aug 28 2020 - 15:29:25 EST


On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 09:50:06AM -0500, Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> The x86 uaccess code uses barrier_nospec() in various places to prevent
> speculative dereferencing of user-controlled pointers (which might be
> combined with further gadgets or CPU bugs to leak data).
>
> There are some issues with the current implementation:
>
> - The barrier_nospec() in copy_from_user() was inadvertently removed
> with: 4b842e4e25b1 ("x86: get rid of small constant size cases in
> raw_copy_{to,from}_user()")
>
> - copy_to_user() and friends should also have a speculation barrier,
> because a speculative write to a user-controlled address can still
> populate the cache line with the original data.
>
> - The LFENCE in barrier_nospec() is overkill, when more lightweight user
> pointer masking can be used instead.
>
> Remove all existing barrier_nospec() usage, and instead do user pointer
> masking, throughout the x86 uaccess code. This is similar to what arm64
> is already doing.
>
> barrier_nospec() is now unused, and can be removed.
>
> Fixes: 4b842e4e25b1 ("x86: get rid of small constant size cases in raw_copy_{to,from}_user()")
> Suggested-by: Will Deacon <will@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@xxxxxxxxxx>

Ping?

--
Josh