Re: [PATCH v3 1/6] x86/bugs: Add asm helpers for executing VERW

[Nikolay Borisov]

<snip>
> +
> +.pushsection .entry.text, "ax"
> +
> +.align L1_CACHE_BYTES, 0xcc
> +SYM_CODE_START_NOALIGN(mds_verw_sel)
> +	UNWIND_HINT_UNDEFINED
> +	ANNOTATE_NOENDBR
> +	.word __KERNEL_DS
> +SYM_CODE_END(mds_verw_sel);
> +/* For KVM */
> +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(mds_verw_sel);
> +
> +.popsection

<snip>

> diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h
> index c55cc243592e..005e69f93115 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h
> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h
> @@ -329,6 +329,21 @@
>   #endif
>   .endm
>   
> +/*
> + * Macros to execute VERW instruction that mitigate transient data sampling
> + * attacks such as MDS. On affected systems a microcode update overloaded VERW
> + * instruction to also clear the CPU buffers. VERW clobbers CFLAGS.ZF.
> + *
> + * Note: Only the memory operand variant of VERW clears the CPU buffers.
> + */
> +.macro EXEC_VERW
> +	verw _ASM_RIP(mds_verw_sel)
> +.endm
> +
> +.macro CLEAR_CPU_BUFFERS
> +	ALTERNATIVE "", __stringify(EXEC_VERW), X86_FEATURE_CLEAR_CPU_BUF
> +.endm


What happened with the first 5 bytes of a 7 byte nop being complemented 
by __KERNEL_DS in order to handle VERW being executed after user 
registers are restored and having its memory operand ?

> +
>   #else /* __ASSEMBLY__ */
>   
>   #define ANNOTATE_RETPOLINE_SAFE					\