Re: [PATCH] x86/asm/entry/32: Restore %ss before SYSRETL if necessary

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 04/23/2015 02:10 PM, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 10:01:16PM +0200, Denys Vlasenko wrote:
>> Naturally, CS can't be NULL, and up until today
>> I thought SS also can't. But the bit is probably implemented
>> for all eight cached descriptors.
> 
> There's this section about NULL selector in APM v2. It says that NULL
> selectors are used to invalidate segment registers and software can load
> a NULL selector in SS in CPL0.
> 
> So, if an interrupt happens and as you quoted earlier that SS gets set
> to NULL as a result of an interrupt, there's that SS leak causing the SS
> exception.
> 

Yes, the NULL SS is a special thing in 64-bit mode.  I agree that
context-switching it is probably the way to go; it should be cheap
enough.  We might even be able to conditionalize it on an X86_BUG_ flag.

	-hpa

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