From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Dave Hansen Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v2 11/27] x86/mm: Modify ptep_set_wrprotect and pmdp_set_wrprotect for _PAGE_DIRTY_SW Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2018 16:52:37 -0700 Message-ID: <2dac9ec0-b144-ac9a-ae35-14f9ff5fc834@linux.intel.com> References: <20180710222639.8241-1-yu-cheng.yu@intel.com> <20180710222639.8241-12-yu-cheng.yu@intel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Nadav Amit , Yu-cheng Yu , x86@kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" , Thomas Gleixner , Ingo Molnar , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, linux-api@vger.kernel.org, Arnd Bergmann , Andy Lutomirski , Balbir Singh , Cyrill Gorcunov , Florian Weimer , "H.J. Lu" , Jann Horn , Jonathan Corbet , Kees Cook , Mike Kravetz , Oleg Nesterov , Pavel Machek , Peter Zijlstra List-Id: linux-api@vger.kernel.org On 07/10/2018 04:23 PM, Nadav Amit wrote: > at 6:44 PM, Dave Hansen wrote: > >> On 07/10/2018 03:26 PM, Yu-cheng Yu wrote: >>> + /* >>> + * On platforms before CET, other threads could race to >>> + * create a RO and _PAGE_DIRTY_HW PMD again. However, >>> + * on CET platforms, this is safe without a TLB flush. >>> + */ >> >> If I didn't work for Intel, I'd wonder what the heck CET is and what the >> heck it has to do with _PAGE_DIRTY_HW. I think we need a better comment >> than this. How about: >> >> Some processors can _start_ a write, but end up seeing >> a read-only PTE by the time they get to getting the >> Dirty bit. In this case, they will set the Dirty bit, >> leaving a read-only, Dirty PTE which looks like a Shadow >> Stack PTE. >> >> However, this behavior has been improved and will *not* occur on >> processors supporting Shadow Stacks. Without this guarantee, a >> transition to a non-present PTE and flush the TLB would be >> needed. > > Interesting. Does that regard the knights landing bug or something more > general? It's more general. > Will the write succeed or trigger a page-fault in this case? It will trigger a page fault.