Re: [RFC] x86_64: A real proposal for iret-less return to kernel

[Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>]

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 02:35:59PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> If RIPV is set but we interrupted *kernel* code, SIGBUS doesn't seem
> like the right solution anyway.
>
> Are there any machine check exceptions for which it makes sense to
> continue right where we left off without a signal?  Is CMIC such a
> beast?  Can CMIC be delivered when interrupts are off?

I think you mean CMCI and that's not even reported with a MCE exception
- there's a separate APIC interrupt for that.

I think this signal thing is for killing processes which have poisoned
memory but this memory can contained within that process and the
physical page frame can be poisoned so that it doesn't get used ever
again. In any case, this is an example for an uncorrectable error which
needs action from us but doesn't necessarily have to kill the whole
machine.

This is supposed to be more graceful instead of consuming the corrupted
data and sending it out to disk.

But sending signals from #MC context is definitely a bad idea. I think
we had addressed this with irq_work at some point but my memory is very
hazy.

@Tony: this is something we need to take a look at soonish.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

Sent from a fat crate under my desk. Formatting is fine.
--