Re: [PATCH v23 12/28] x86/mm: Update ptep_set_wrprotect() and pmdp_set_wrprotect() for transition from _PAGE_DIRTY to _PAGE_COW

From: Kirill A. Shutemov
Date: Mon Mar 22 2021 - 06:16:00 EST


On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 08:10:38AM -0700, Yu-cheng Yu wrote:
> When Shadow Stack is introduced, [R/O + _PAGE_DIRTY] PTE is reserved for
> shadow stack. Copy-on-write PTEs have [R/O + _PAGE_COW].
>
> When a PTE goes from [R/W + _PAGE_DIRTY] to [R/O + _PAGE_COW], it could
> become a transient shadow stack PTE in two cases:
>
> The first case is that some processors can start a write but end up seeing
> a read-only PTE by the time they get to the Dirty bit, creating a transient
> shadow stack PTE. However, this will not occur on processors supporting
> Shadow Stack, and a TLB flush is not necessary.
>
> The second case is that when _PAGE_DIRTY is replaced with _PAGE_COW non-
> atomically, a transient shadow stack PTE can be created as a result.
> Thus, prevent that with cmpxchg.
>
> Dave Hansen, Jann Horn, Andy Lutomirski, and Peter Zijlstra provided many
> insights to the issue. Jann Horn provided the cmpxchg solution.
>
> Signed-off-by: Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h | 36 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 1 file changed, 36 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h
> index e1739f590ca6..46d9394b884f 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h
> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h
> @@ -1306,6 +1306,24 @@ static inline pte_t ptep_get_and_clear_full(struct mm_struct *mm,
> static inline void ptep_set_wrprotect(struct mm_struct *mm,
> unsigned long addr, pte_t *ptep)
> {
> + /*
> + * If Shadow Stack is enabled, pte_wrprotect() moves _PAGE_DIRTY
> + * to _PAGE_COW (see comments at pte_wrprotect()).
> + * When a thread reads a RW=1, Dirty=0 PTE and before changing it
> + * to RW=0, Dirty=0, another thread could have written to the page
> + * and the PTE is RW=1, Dirty=1 now. Use try_cmpxchg() to detect
> + * PTE changes and update old_pte, then try again.
> + */
> + if (cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_SHSTK)) {
> + pte_t old_pte, new_pte;
> +
> + old_pte = READ_ONCE(*ptep);
> + do {
> + new_pte = pte_wrprotect(old_pte);
> + } while (!try_cmpxchg(&ptep->pte, &old_pte.pte, new_pte.pte));

I think this is wrong. You need to update old_pte on every loop iteration,
otherwise you can get in to endless loop.

The same issue for pmdp_set_wrprotect().

> +
> + return;
> + }
> clear_bit(_PAGE_BIT_RW, (unsigned long *)&ptep->pte);
> }
>
> @@ -1350,6 +1368,24 @@ static inline pud_t pudp_huge_get_and_clear(struct mm_struct *mm,
> static inline void pmdp_set_wrprotect(struct mm_struct *mm,
> unsigned long addr, pmd_t *pmdp)
> {
> + /*
> + * If Shadow Stack is enabled, pmd_wrprotect() moves _PAGE_DIRTY
> + * to _PAGE_COW (see comments at pmd_wrprotect()).
> + * When a thread reads a RW=1, Dirty=0 PMD and before changing it
> + * to RW=0, Dirty=0, another thread could have written to the page
> + * and the PMD is RW=1, Dirty=1 now. Use try_cmpxchg() to detect
> + * PMD changes and update old_pmd, then try again.
> + */
> + if (cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_SHSTK)) {
> + pmd_t old_pmd, new_pmd;
> +
> + old_pmd = READ_ONCE(*pmdp);
> + do {
> + new_pmd = pmd_wrprotect(old_pmd);
> + } while (!try_cmpxchg((pmdval_t *)pmdp, (pmdval_t *)&old_pmd, pmd_val(new_pmd)));
> +
> + return;
> + }
> clear_bit(_PAGE_BIT_RW, (unsigned long *)pmdp);
> }
>
> --
> 2.21.0
>

--
Kirill A. Shutemov