Re: [RFC] x86/cpu_entry_area: move part of it back to fixmap

[Andy Lutomirski]

On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 3:08 PM Nadav Amit <namit@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> at 10:02 AM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 9:31 AM Nadav Amit <namit@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> at 7:11 AM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Oct 3, 2018, at 9:59 PM, Nadav Amit <namit@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> This RFC proposes to return part of the entry-area back to the fixmap to
> >>>> improve system-call performance. Currently, since the entry-area is
> >>>> mapped far (more than 2GB) away from the kernel text, an indirect branch
> >>>> is needed to jump from the trampoline into the kernel. Due to Spectre
> >>>> v2, vulnerable CPUs need to use a retpoline, which introduces an
> >>>> overhead of >20 cycles.
> >>>
> >>> That retpoline is gone in -tip. Can you see how your code stacks up against -tip?  If itâs enough of a win to justify the added complexity, we can try it.
> >>>
> >>> You can see some pros and cons in the changelog:
> >>>
> >>> https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgit.kernel.org%2Ftip%2Fbf904d2762ee6fc1e4acfcb0772bbfb4a27ad8a6&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cnamit%40vmware.com%7C9996b2dd6f1745dce10b08d62a1b3f3e%7Cb39138ca3cee4b4aa4d6cd83d9dd62f0%7C1%7C0%7C636742693864878787&amp;sdata=NW0R%2Fv5OahZlTbbNgnFk20sF4Wt1W0MDjtv9g1k%2BWdg%3D&amp;reserved=0
> >>
> >> Err.. Thatâs what I get for not following lkml. Very nice discussion.
> >> Based on it, I may be able to do an additional micro-optimizations or
> >> two. Let me give it a try.
> >
> > I think you should at least try to benchmark your code against mine,
> > since you more or less implemented the alternative I suggested. :)
>
> Thatâs what I meant. So I made a couple of tweaksin my implementation to
> make as performant as possible. Eventually, there is a 2ns benefit for the
> trampoline over the unified entry-path on average on my Haswell VM (254ns vs
> 256ns), yet there is some variance (1.2 & 1.5ns stdev correspondingly).
>
> I donât know whether such a difference should make one option to be preferred
> over the other. I think it boils down to whether:
>
> 1. KASLR is needed.

Why?  KASLR is basically worthless on any existing CPU against
attackers who can run local code.

>
> 2. Can you specialize the code-paths of trampoline/non-trampoline to gain
> better performance. For example, by removing the ALTERNATIVE from
> SWITCH_TO_KERNEL_CR3 and not reload CR3 on the non-trampoline path, you can
> avoid an unconditional jmp on machines which are not vulnerable to Meltdown.
>
> So I can guess what youâd prefer. Letâs see if Iâm right.
>

2 ns isn't bad, at least on a non-PTI system.  Which, I suppose, means
that you should benchmark on AMD :)

If the code is reasonably clean, I could get on board.