Re: [PATCH v2 28/39] x86/cet/shstk: Introduce map_shadow_stack syscall

[Florian Weimer]

* Rick Edgecombe:

> When operating with shadow stacks enabled, the kernel will automatically
> allocate shadow stacks for new threads, however in some cases userspace
> will need additional shadow stacks. The main example of this is the
> ucontext family of functions, which require userspace allocating and
> pivoting to userspace managed stacks.
>
> Unlike most other user memory permissions, shadow stacks need to be
> provisioned with special data in order to be useful. They need to be setup
> with a restore token so that userspace can pivot to them via the RSTORSSP
> instruction. But, the security design of shadow stack's is that they
> should not be written to except in limited circumstances. This presents a
> problem for userspace, as to how userspace can provision this special
> data, without allowing for the shadow stack to be generally writable.
>
> Previously, a new PROT_SHADOW_STACK was attempted, which could be
> mprotect()ed from RW permissions after the data was provisioned. This was
> found to not be secure enough, as other thread's could write to the
> shadow stack during the writable window.
>
> The kernel can use a special instruction, WRUSS, to write directly to
> userspace shadow stacks. So the solution can be that memory can be mapped
> as shadow stack permissions from the beginning (never generally writable
> in userspace), and the kernel itself can write the restore token.
>
> First, a new madvise() flag was explored, which could operate on the
> PROT_SHADOW_STACK memory. This had a couple downsides:
> 1. Extra checks were needed in mprotect() to prevent writable memory from
>    ever becoming PROT_SHADOW_STACK.
> 2. Extra checks/vma state were needed in the new madvise() to prevent
>    restore tokens being written into the middle of pre-used shadow stacks.
>    It is ideal to prevent restore tokens being added at arbitrary
>    locations, so the check was to make sure the shadow stack had never been
>    written to.
> 3. It stood out from the rest of the madvise flags, as more of direct
>    action than a hint at future desired behavior.
>
> So rather than repurpose two existing syscalls (mmap, madvise) that don't
> quite fit, just implement a new map_shadow_stack syscall to allow
> userspace to map and setup new shadow stacks in one step. While ucontext
> is the primary motivator, userspace may have other unforeseen reasons to
> setup it's own shadow stacks using the WRSS instruction. Towards this
> provide a flag so that stacks can be optionally setup securely for the
> common case of ucontext without enabling WRSS. Or potentially have the
> kernel set up the shadow stack in some new way.
>
> The following example demonstrates how to create a new shadow stack with
> map_shadow_stack:
> void *shstk = map_shadow_stack(adrr, stack_size, SHADOW_STACK_SET_TOKEN);

Jason has recently been working on vDSO-based getrandom acceleration.
It needs a way for a userspace thread to allocate userspace memory in a
specific way.  Jason proposed to use a vDSO call as the interface, not a
system call.

Maybe this approach is applicable here as well?  Or we can come up with
a more general interface for such per-thread allocations?

Thanks,
Florian