[PATCH 2/2] x86/speculation/mds: Improve CPU buffer clear documentation

[Andy Lutomirski]

On x86_64, all returns to usermode go through
prepare_exit_to_usermode(), with the sole exception of do_nmi().
This even includes machine checks -- this was added several years
ago to support MCE recovery.  Update the documentation.

Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Jon Masters <jcm@xxxxxxxxxx>
Fixes: 04dcbdb80578 ("x86/speculation/mds: Clear CPU buffers on exit to user")
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/x86/mds.rst | 39 +++++++--------------------------------
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 32 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/x86/mds.rst b/Documentation/x86/mds.rst
index 0dc812bb9249..5d4330be200f 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/mds.rst
+++ b/Documentation/x86/mds.rst
@@ -142,38 +142,13 @@ Mitigation points
    mds_user_clear.
 
    The mitigation is invoked in prepare_exit_to_usermode() which covers
-   most of the kernel to user space transitions. There are a few exceptions
-   which are not invoking prepare_exit_to_usermode() on return to user
-   space. These exceptions use the paranoid exit code.
-
-   - Non Maskable Interrupt (NMI):
-
-     Access to sensible data like keys, credentials in the NMI context is
-     mostly theoretical: The CPU can do prefetching or execute a
-     misspeculated code path and thereby fetching data which might end up
-     leaking through a buffer.
-
-     But for mounting other attacks the kernel stack address of the task is
-     already valuable information. So in full mitigation mode, the NMI is
-     mitigated on the return from do_nmi() to provide almost complete
-     coverage.
-
-   - Machine Check Exception (#MC):
-
-     Another corner case is a #MC which hits between the CPU buffer clear
-     invocation and the actual return to user. As this still is in kernel
-     space it takes the paranoid exit path which does not clear the CPU
-     buffers. So the #MC handler repopulates the buffers to some
-     extent. Machine checks are not reliably controllable and the window is
-     extremly small so mitigation would just tick a checkbox that this
-     theoretical corner case is covered. To keep the amount of special
-     cases small, ignore #MC.
-
-   - Debug Exception (#DB):
-
-     This takes the paranoid exit path only when the INT1 breakpoint is in
-     kernel space. #DB on a user space address takes the regular exit path,
-     so no extra mitigation required.
+   all but one of the kernel to user space transitions.  The exception
+   is when we return from a Non Maskable Interrupt (NMI), which is
+   handled directly in do_nmi().
+
+   (The reason that NMI is special is that prepare_exit_to_usermode() can
+    enable IRQs.  In NMI context, NMIs are blocked, and we don't want to
+    enable IRQs with NMIs blocked.)
 
 
 2. C-State transition
-- 
2.21.0