Re: [PATCH v11 25/25] x86/cet/shstk: Add arch_prctl functions for shadow stack

From: Yu, Yu-cheng
Date: Thu Aug 27 2020 - 14:13:55 EST


On 8/27/2020 6:36 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:
* H. J. Lu:

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 6:19 AM Florian Weimer <fweimer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

* Dave Martin:

You're right that this has implications: for i386, libc probably pulls
more arguments off the stack than are really there in some situations.
This isn't a new problem though. There are already generic prctls with
fewer than 4 args that are used on x86.

As originally posted, glibc prctl would have to know that it has to pull
an u64 argument off the argument list for ARCH_X86_CET_DISABLE. But
then the u64 argument is a problem for arch_prctl as well.


Argument of ARCH_X86_CET_DISABLE is int and passed in register.

The commit message and the C source say otherwise, I think (not sure
about the C source, not a kernel hacker).


H.J. Lu suggested that we fix x86 arch_prctl() to take four arguments, and then keep MMAP_SHSTK as an arch_prctl(). Because now the map flags and size are all in registers, this also solves problems being pointed out earlier. Without a wrapper, the shadow stack mmap call (from user space) will be:

syscall(_NR_arch_prctl, ARCH_X86_CET_MMAP_SHSTK, size, MAP_32BIT).

I think this would be a nice alternative to another new syscall.

If this looks good to everyone, I can send out new patches as response to my current version, and then after all issues fixed, send v12.

Thanks,
Yu-cheng