[PATCH v2 01/39] Documentation/x86: Add CET description

[Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>]

From: Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>

Introduce a new document on Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET).

Signed-off-by: Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>
Co-developed-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>

---

v2:
 - Updated to new arch_prctl() API
 - Add bit about new proc status

v1:
 - Update and clarify the docs.
 - Moved kernel parameters documentation to other patch.

 Documentation/x86/cet.rst   | 140 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/x86/index.rst |   1 +
 2 files changed, 141 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/x86/cet.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/x86/cet.rst b/Documentation/x86/cet.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..4a0dfb6830f9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/x86/cet.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,140 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=========================================
+Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET)
+=========================================
+
+Overview
+========
+
+Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) is term referring to several
+related x86 processor features that provides protection against control
+flow hijacking attacks. The HW feature itself can be set up to protect
+both applications and the kernel. Only user-mode protection is implemented
+in the 64-bit kernel.
+
+CET introduces Shadow Stack and Indirect Branch Tracking. Shadow stack is
+a secondary stack allocated from memory and cannot be directly modified by
+applications. When executing a CALL instruction, the processor pushes the
+return address to both the normal stack and the shadow stack. Upon
+function return, the processor pops the shadow stack copy and compares it
+to the normal stack copy. If the two differ, the processor raises a
+control-protection fault. Indirect branch tracking verifies indirect
+CALL/JMP targets are intended as marked by the compiler with 'ENDBR'
+opcodes. Not all CPU's have both Shadow Stack and Indirect Branch Tracking
+and only Shadow Stack is currently supported in the kernel.
+
+The Kconfig options is X86_SHADOW_STACK, and it can be disabled with
+the kernel parameter clearcpuid, like this: "clearcpuid=shstk".
+
+To build a CET-enabled kernel, Binutils v2.31 and GCC v8.1 or LLVM v10.0.1
+or later are required. To build a CET-enabled application, GLIBC v2.28 or
+later is also required.
+
+At run time, /proc/cpuinfo shows CET features if the processor supports
+CET.
+
+Application Enabling
+====================
+
+An application's CET capability is marked in its ELF header and can be
+verified from readelf/llvm-readelf output:
+
+    readelf -n <application> | grep -a SHSTK
+        properties: x86 feature: SHSTK
+
+The kernel does not process these applications directly. Applications must
+enable them using the interface descriped in section 4. Typically this
+would be done in dynamic loader or static runtime objects, as is the case
+in glibc.
+
+Backward Compatibility
+======================
+
+GLIBC provides a few CET tunables via the GLIBC_TUNABLES environment
+variable:
+
+GLIBC_TUNABLES=glibc.tune.hwcaps=-SHSTK,-WRSS
+    Turn off SHSTK/WRSS.
+
+GLIBC_TUNABLES=glibc.tune.x86_shstk=<on, permissive>
+    This controls how dlopen() handles SHSTK legacy libraries::
+
+        on         - continue with SHSTK enabled;
+        permissive - continue with SHSTK off.
+
+Details can be found in the GLIBC manual pages.
+
+CET arch_prctl()'s
+==================
+
+Elf features should be enabled by the loader using the below arch_prctl's.
+
+arch_prctl(ARCH_CET_ENABLE, unsigned int feature)
+    Enable a single feature specified in 'feature'. Can only operate on
+    one feature at a time.
+
+arch_prctl(ARCH_CET_DISABLE, unsigned int feature)
+    Disable features specified in 'feature'. Can only operate on
+    one feature at a time.
+
+arch_prctl(ARCH_CET_LOCK, unsigned int features)
+    Lock in features at their current enabled or disabled status.
+
+The return values are as following:
+    On success, return 0. On error, errno can be::
+
+        -EPERM if any of the passed feature are locked.
+        -EOPNOTSUPP if the feature is not supported by the hardware or
+         disabled by kernel parameter.
+        -EINVAL arguments (non existing feature, etc)
+
+Currently shadow stack and WRSS are supported via this interface. WRSS
+can only be enabled with shadow stack, and is automatically disabled
+if shadow stack is disabled.
+
+Proc status
+===========
+To check if an application is actually running with shadow stack, the
+user can read the /proc/$PID/arch_status. It will report "wrss" or
+"shstk" depending on what is enabled.
+
+The implementation of the Shadow Stack
+======================================
+
+Shadow Stack size
+-----------------
+
+A task's shadow stack is allocated from memory to a fixed size of
+MIN(RLIMIT_STACK, 4 GB). In other words, the shadow stack is allocated to
+the maximum size of the normal stack, but capped to 4 GB. However,
+a compat-mode application's address space is smaller, each of its thread's
+shadow stack size is MIN(1/4 RLIMIT_STACK, 4 GB).
+
+Signal
+------
+
+By default, the main program and its signal handlers use the same shadow
+stack. Because the shadow stack stores only return addresses, a large
+shadow stack covers the condition that both the program stack and the
+signal alternate stack run out.
+
+The kernel creates a restore token for the shadow stack and pushes the
+restorer address to the shadow stack. Then verifies that token when
+restoring from the signal handler.
+
+Fork
+----
+
+The shadow stack's vma has VM_SHADOW_STACK flag set; its PTEs are required
+to be read-only and dirty. When a shadow stack PTE is not RO and dirty, a
+shadow access triggers a page fault with the shadow stack access bit set
+in the page fault error code.
+
+When a task forks a child, its shadow stack PTEs are copied and both the
+parent's and the child's shadow stack PTEs are cleared of the dirty bit.
+Upon the next shadow stack access, the resulting shadow stack page fault
+is handled by page copy/re-use.
+
+When a pthread child is created, the kernel allocates a new shadow stack
+for the new thread.
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/index.rst b/Documentation/x86/index.rst
index c73d133fd37c..9ac03055c4b5 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/x86/index.rst
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ x86-specific Documentation
    mtrr
    pat
    intel-hfi
+   cet
    iommu
    intel_txt
    amd-memory-encryption
-- 
2.17.1