Re: [PATCH v3 1/1] x86/fred: Fix INT80 emulation for FRED

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Wed Apr 17 2024 - 12:40:22 EST




On 4/17/24 08:55, Xin Li wrote:
On 4/17/2024 8:07 AM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
On 4/17/24 04:02, Nikolay Borisov wrote:

On 17.04.24 г. 9:30 ч., Xin Li (Intel) wrote:
4) int80_emulation() does a CLEAR_BRANCH_HISTORY, which is likely >     overkill for new x86 CPU implementations that support FRED.

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement/speculation, because clear_branch_history will only be effective if the machine is susceptible to the given bug and there isn't a better options (i.e using a hardware bit controlling the respective aspect of the CPU).


It would seem like a huge stretch to expect that a FRED-capable CPU would not have such a facility. This is a matter of establishing a baseline for FRED-capable hardware.

It would make more sense to me to add it if we turn out to need it; note that FRED code is currently only enabled on demand, in order to defend against bit rot until we have physical hardware.

Now, if this is still desired, it *probably* belongs better in either fred_intx()/fred_other() or asm_fred_entrypoint_user, depending on if this ought to be done for all entries from userspace or only system calls.

My bad that I didn't make this a good comment, even neglected that clear_branch_history is just a nop on machines w/o such security issues.


So how about?

int80_emulation() does a CLEAR_BRANCH_HISTORY, which is IDT-specific.
While FRED will likely take a different approach when it is needed:

s/when/if it is ever needed/

it *probably* belongs in either fred_intx()/fred_other() or
asm_fred_entrypoint_user(), depending on if this ought to be done for all entries from userspace or only system calls.