Re: [PATCH 05/11] x86/fpu: set PKRU state for kernel threads

From: Sebastian Andrzej Siewior
Date: Thu Oct 18 2018 - 12:26:54 EST


On 2018-10-12 11:02:18 [-0700], Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 10:54 AM Dave Hansen
> <dave.hansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/04/2018 07:05 AM, Sebastian Andrzej Siewior wrote:
> > > The PKRU value is not set for kernel threads because they do not have
> > > the ->initialized value set. As a result the kernel thread has a random
> > > PKRU value set which it inherits from the previous task.
> > > It has been suggested by Paolo Bonzini to set it for kernel threads, too
> > > because it might be a fix.
> > > I *think* this is not required because the kernel threads don't copy
> > > data to/from userland and don't have access to any userspace mm in
> > > general.
> > > However there is this use_mm(). If we gain a mm by use_mm() we don't
> > > have a matching PKRU value because those are per thread. It has been
> > > suggested to use 0 as the PKRU value but this would bypass PKRU.
> > >
> > > Set the initial (default) PKRU value for kernel threads.
> >
> > We might want to do this for cleanliness reasons... Maybe.
> >
> > But this *should* have no practical effects. Kernel threads have no
> > real 'mm' and no user pages. They should not have do access to user
> > mappings. Protection keys *only* apply to user mappings. Thus,
> > logically, they should never be affected by PKRU values.
> >
> > So I'm kinda missing the point of the patch.
>
> use_mm().

So. I would drop that patch from queue. Anyone feels different about it?

Sebastian