Re: [PATCH v2 00/13] objtool: Detect and warn about indirect calls in __nocfi functions

Sean Christopherson
2025-05-01T19:00:01Z

On Thu, May 01, 2025, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On May 1, 2025 11:30:18 AM PDT, Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com> wrote:
> >On Thu, May 01, 2025, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >> On Thu, May 01, 2025 at 12:30:38PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >> > On Wed, Apr 30, 2025 at 09:06:00PM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> >> > > On Wed, Apr 30, 2025 at 07:24:15AM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > >KVM has another; the VMX interrupt injection stuff calls the IDT handler
> >> > > > >directly. Is there an alternative? Can we keep a table of Linux functions
> >> > > > >slighly higher up the call stack (asm_\cfunc ?) and add CFI to those?
> >> > >
> >> > > > We do have a table of handlers higher up in the stack in the form of
> >> > > > the dispatch tables for FRED. They don't in general even need the
> >> > > > assembly entry stubs, either.
> >> > >
> >> > > Oh, right. I'll go have a look at those.
> >> >
> >> > Right, so perhaps the easiest way around this is to setup the FRED entry
> >> > tables unconditionally, have VMX mandate CONFIG_FRED and then have it
> >> > always use the FRED entry points.
> >> >
> >> > Let me see how ugly that gets.
> >>
> >> Something like so... except this is broken. Its reporting spurious
> >> interrupts on vector 0x00, so something is buggered passing that vector
> >> along.
> >
> >Uh, aren't you making this way more complex than it needs to be? IIUC, KVM never
> >uses the FRED hardware entry points, i.e. the FRED entry tables don't need to be
> >in place because they'll never be used. The only bits of code KVM needs is the
> >__fred_entry_from_kvm() glue.
> >
> >Lightly tested, but this combo works for IRQs and NMIs on non-FRED hardware.

Hrm, and now I see that fred_extint() relies on fred_install_sysvec(), which makes
me quite curious as to why IRQs didn't go sideways. Oh, because sysvec_table[]
is statically defined at compile time except for PV crud.

So yeah, I think my the patches are correct, they just the need a small bit of
prep work to support dynamic setup of sysvec_table.

> >--
> >From 664468143109ab7c525c0babeba62195fa4c657e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> >From: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
> >Date: Thu, 1 May 2025 11:20:29 -0700
> >Subject: [PATCH 1/2] x86/fred: Play nice with invoking
> > asm_fred_entry_from_kvm() on non-FRED hardware
> >
> >Modify asm_fred_entry_from_kvm() to allow it to be invoked by KVM even
> >when FRED isn't fully enabled, e.g. when running with CONFIG_X86_FRED=y
> >on non-FRED hardware. This will allow forcing KVM to always use the FRED
> >entry points for 64-bit kernels, which in turn will eliminate a rather
> >gross non-CFI indirect call that KVM uses to trampoline IRQs by doing IDT
> >lookups.
> >
> >When FRED isn't enabled, simply skip ERETS and restore RBP and RSP from
> >the stack frame prior to doing a "regular" RET back to KVM (in quotes
> >because of all the RET mitigation horrors).
> >
> >Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
> >---
> > arch/x86/entry/entry_64_fred.S | 5 +++--
> > 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >
> >diff --git a/arch/x86/entry/entry_64_fred.S b/arch/x86/entry/entry_64_fred.S
> >index 29c5c32c16c3..7aff2f0a285f 100644
> >--- a/arch/x86/entry/entry_64_fred.S
> >+++ b/arch/x86/entry/entry_64_fred.S
> >@@ -116,7 +116,8 @@ SYM_FUNC_START(asm_fred_entry_from_kvm)
> > movq %rsp, %rdi /* %rdi -> pt_regs */
> > call __fred_entry_from_kvm /* Call the C entry point */
> > POP_REGS
> >- ERETS
> >+
> >+ ALTERNATIVE "", __stringify(ERETS), X86_FEATURE_FRED
> > 1:
> > /*
> > * Objtool doesn't understand what ERETS does, this hint tells it that
> >@@ -124,7 +125,7 @@ SYM_FUNC_START(asm_fred_entry_from_kvm)
> > * isn't strictly needed, but it's the simplest form.
> > */
> > UNWIND_HINT_RESTORE
> >- pop %rbp
> >+ leave
> > RET
> >
> > SYM_FUNC_END(asm_fred_entry_from_kvm)
> >
> >base-commit: 45eb29140e68ffe8e93a5471006858a018480a45
>
> Ok maybe I'm being dense, but what is left other than simply calling
> __fred_entry_from_kvm() as a normal C function?
>
> I'm on the go so there might be something in the code I'm missing, but on the
> surface...?

I'm sure it's doable, though I'd be more than a little nervous about diverging
from what FRED=y does, e.g. in case code somewhere expects the stack to look
exactly like a real FRED event.

And since we'd still need the assembly to support FRED=y, I don't see any point
in adding more code when it's trivially easy to have asm_fred_entry_from_kvm()
skip ERETS.