Re: [PATCH v28 09/32] x86/mm: Introduce _PAGE_COW

Borislav Petkov
2021-08-17T20:24:28Z

On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 01:13:09PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > If special kernel code using shadow stack management insns needs
> > to modify a shadow stack, then it can check whether a page is
> > pte/pmd_shstk() but that code is special anyway.
> >
> > Hell, a shadow stack page is (Write=0, Dirty=1) so calling it writable
> > ^^^^^^^
> > is simply wrong.
>
> But it *is* writable using WRUSS, and it’s also writable by CALL,

Well, if we have to be precise, CALL doesn't write it directly - it
causes for shadow stack to be written as part of CALL's execution. Yeah
yeah, potato potato.

> WRSS, etc.

Thus the "special kernel code" thing above. I've left it in instead of
snipping it.

> Now if the mm code tries to write protect it and expects sensible
> semantics, the results could be interesting. At the very least,
> someone would need to validate that RET reading a read only shadow
> stack page does the right thing.

Huh?

A shadow stack page is RO (W=0).

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.