[patch 2/2] x86/alternatives: Disable interrupts and sync when optimizing NOPs in place

From: Thomas Gleixner
Date: Thu Dec 07 2023 - 14:49:31 EST


apply_alternatives() treats alternatives with the ALT_FLAG_NOT flag set
special as it optimizes the existing NOPs in place.

Unfortunately this happens with interrupts enabled and does not provide any
form of core synchronization.

So an interrupt hitting in the middle of the update and using the affected
code path will observe a half updated NOP and crash and burn. The following
3 NOP sequence was observed to expose this crash halfways reliably under
QEMU 32bit:

0x90 0x90 0x90

which is replaced by the optimized 3 byte NOP:

0x8d 0x76 0x00

So an interrupt can observe:

1) 0x90 0x90 0x90 nop nop nop
2) 0x8d 0x90 0x90 undefined
3) 0x8d 0x76 0x90 lea -0x70(%esi),%esi
4) 0x8d 0x76 0x00 lea 0x0(%esi),%esi

Where only #1 and #4 are true NOPs. The same problem exists for 64bit obviously.

Disable interrupts around this NOP optimization and invoke sync_core()
before reenabling them.

Fixes: 270a69c4485d ("x86/alternative: Support relocations in alternatives")
Reported-by: Paul Gortmaker <paul.gortmaker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---
arch/x86/kernel/alternative.c | 12 +++++++++++-
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

--- a/arch/x86/kernel/alternative.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/alternative.c
@@ -255,6 +255,16 @@ static void __init_or_module noinline op
}
}

+static void __init_or_module noinline optimize_nops_inplace(u8 *instr, size_t len)
+{
+ unsigned long flags;
+
+ local_irq_save(flags);
+ optimize_nops(instr, len);
+ sync_core();
+ local_irq_restore(flags);
+}
+
/*
* In this context, "source" is where the instructions are placed in the
* section .altinstr_replacement, for example during kernel build by the
@@ -438,7 +448,7 @@ void __init_or_module noinline apply_alt
* patch if feature is *NOT* present.
*/
if (!boot_cpu_has(a->cpuid) == !(a->flags & ALT_FLAG_NOT)) {
- optimize_nops(instr, a->instrlen);
+ optimize_nops_inplace(instr, a->instrlen);
continue;
}