[Patch v2 5/9] perf/x86/intel: Drop LBR entries whose privilege level mismatches br_sel
From: Dapeng Mi
Date: Tue Jun 09 2026 - 01:10:41 EST
Before Arch LBR gained CPL filtering support, a user-only branch stack
could still contain kernel addresses. As a result, kernel branch records
may be exposed to user space even when PERF_SAMPLE_BRANCH_USER is
requested.
For example, on Intel Tiger Lake, the following command can still report
SYSRET/ERET entries with kernel-space from addresses:
```
$./perf record -e cycles:p -o - --branch-filter any,save_type,u -- \
./perf bench syscall basic --loop 1000 | \
./perf script -i - --fields brstack|tr ' ' '\n'| \
grep -E '0x[89a-f][0-9a-f]{15}'
Total time: 0.000 [sec]
0.219000 usecs/op
4,566,210 ops/sec
[ perf record: Woken up 1 times to write data ]
[ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.551 MB - ]
0xffffffff93c001c8/0x7f12a2b1d647/P/-/-/16959/SYSRET/-
0xffffffff93c001c8/0x7f12a2b1d5c2/P/-/-/17535/SYSRET/-
0xffffffff93c01928/0x7f12a2861000/P/-/-/6719/ERET/-
0xffffffff93c01928/0x7f12a297a000/P/-/-/8575/ERET/-
```
The problem is that intel_pmu_lbr_filter() does not fully validate the
privilege level of sampled entries. It filters some mismatches based on
the branch type and the to address, but it does not reject entries whose
from address violates the requested branch privilege filter.
Fix this by extending software filtering to validate both from and to
addresses against br_sel. Any LBR entry whose privilege level does not
match the requested user/kernel filter is dropped. This prevents kernel
addresses from appearing in user-only branch stacks, and likewise drops
user entries from kernel-only stacks.
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reported-by: Ian Rogers <irogers@xxxxxxxxxx>
Fixes: 47125db27e47 ("perf/x86/intel/lbr: Support Architectural LBR")
Signed-off-by: Dapeng Mi <dapeng1.mi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/events/intel/lbr.c | 14 +++++++++++---
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/events/intel/lbr.c b/arch/x86/events/intel/lbr.c
index d4c0ed85e1fb..807ce903c972 100644
--- a/arch/x86/events/intel/lbr.c
+++ b/arch/x86/events/intel/lbr.c
@@ -1212,7 +1212,7 @@ intel_pmu_lbr_filter(struct cpu_hw_events *cpuc)
{
u64 from, to;
int br_sel = cpuc->br_sel;
- int i, j, type, to_plm;
+ int i, j, type, to_plm, from_plm;
bool compress = false;
/* if sampling all branches, then nothing to filter */
@@ -1245,8 +1245,16 @@ intel_pmu_lbr_filter(struct cpu_hw_events *cpuc)
type |= X86_BR_NO_TX;
}
- /* if type does not correspond, then discard */
- if (type == X86_BR_NONE || (br_sel & type) != type) {
+ from_plm = kernel_ip(from) ? X86_BR_KERNEL : X86_BR_USER;
+ /*
+ * If type does not correspond, then discard.
+ * Especially filter out the entries whose from or to address is
+ * a kernel address while only X86_BR_USER is set. This prevents
+ * kernel address from being leaked into a user-space-only LBR stack.
+ */
+ if (type == X86_BR_NONE || (br_sel & type) != type ||
+ (!(br_sel & X86_BR_KERNEL) && (from_plm & X86_BR_KERNEL)) ||
+ (!(br_sel & X86_BR_USER) && (from_plm & X86_BR_USER))) {
cpuc->lbr_entries[i].from = 0;
compress = true;
}
--
2.34.1