Re: [PATCH v6 25/41] x86/mm: Introduce MAP_ABOVE4G

[Kees Cook]

On Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 01:14:17PM -0800, Rick Edgecombe wrote:
> The x86 Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) feature includes a new
> type of memory called shadow stack. This shadow stack memory has some
> unusual properties, which require some core mm changes to function
> properly.
> 
> One of the properties is that the shadow stack pointer (SSP), which is a
> CPU register that points to the shadow stack like the stack pointer points
> to the stack, can't be pointing outside of the 32 bit address space when
> the CPU is executing in 32 bit mode. It is desirable to prevent executing
> in 32 bit mode when shadow stack is enabled because the kernel can't easily
> support 32 bit signals.
> 
> On x86 it is possible to transition to 32 bit mode without any special
> interaction with the kernel, by doing a "far call" to a 32 bit segment.
> So the shadow stack implementation can use this address space behavior
> as a feature, by enforcing that shadow stack memory is always crated
> outside of the 32 bit address space. This way userspace will trigger a
> general protection fault which will in turn trigger a segfault if it
> tries to transition to 32 bit mode with shadow stack enabled.
> 
> This provides a clean error generating border for the user if they try
> attempt to do 32 bit mode shadow stack, rather than leave the kernel in a
> half working state for userspace to be surprised by.
> 
> So to allow future shadow stack enabling patches to map shadow stacks
> out of the 32 bit address space, introduce MAP_ABOVE4G. The behavior
> is pretty much like MAP_32BIT, except that it has the opposite address
> range. The are a few differences though.
> 
> If both MAP_32BIT and MAP_ABOVE4G are provided, the kernel will use the
> MAP_ABOVE4G behavior. Like MAP_32BIT, MAP_ABOVE4G is ignored in a 32 bit
> syscall.

Should the interface refuse to accept both set instead?

Reviewed-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

-- 
Kees Cook