[PATCH v3 08/37] x86/mm: Remove _PAGE_DIRTY from kernel RO pages

Rick Edgecombe
2022-11-04T22:40:15Z

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

New processors that support Shadow Stack regard Write=0,Dirty=1 PTEs as
shadow stack pages.

In normal cases, it can be helpful to create Write=1 PTEs as also Dirty=1
if HW dirty tracking is not needed, because if the Dirty bit is not already
set the CPU has to set Dirty=1 when it the memory gets written to. This
creates addiontal work for the CPU. So tradional wisdom was to simply set
the Dirty bit whenever you didn't care about it. However, it was never
really very helpful for read only kernel memory.

When CR4.CET=1 and IA32_S_CET.SH_STK_EN=1, some instructions can write to
such supervisor memory. The kernel does not set IA32_S_CET.SH_STK_EN, so
avoiding kernel Write=0,Dirty=1 memory is not strictly needed for any
functional reason. But having Write=0,Dirty=1 kernel memory doesn't have
any functional benefit either, so to reduce ambiguity between shadow stack
and regular Write=0 pages, removed Dirty=1 from any kernel Write=0 PTEs.

Tested-by: Pengfei Xu <pengfei.xu@intel.com>
Tested-by: John Allen <john.allen@amd.com>
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: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>

---

v3:
- Update commit log (Andrew Cooper, Peterz)

v2:
- Normalize PTE bit descriptions between patches

arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_types.h | 6 +++---
arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c | 2 +-
2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_types.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_types.h
index aa174fed3a71..ff82237e7b6b 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_types.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_types.h
@@ -192,10 +192,10 @@ enum page_cache_mode {
#define _KERNPG_TABLE (__PP|__RW| 0|___A| 0|___D| 0| 0| _ENC)
#define _PAGE_TABLE_NOENC (__PP|__RW|_USR|___A| 0|___D| 0| 0)
#define _PAGE_TABLE (__PP|__RW|_USR|___A| 0|___D| 0| 0| _ENC)
-#define __PAGE_KERNEL_RO (__PP| 0| 0|___A|__NX|___D| 0|___G)
-#define __PAGE_KERNEL_ROX (__PP| 0| 0|___A| 0|___D| 0|___G)
+#define __PAGE_KERNEL_RO (__PP| 0| 0|___A|__NX| 0| 0|___G)
+#define __PAGE_KERNEL_ROX (__PP| 0| 0|___A| 0| 0| 0|___G)
#define __PAGE_KERNEL_NOCACHE (__PP|__RW| 0|___A|__NX|___D| 0|___G| __NC)
-#define __PAGE_KERNEL_VVAR (__PP| 0|_USR|___A|__NX|___D| 0|___G)
+#define __PAGE_KERNEL_VVAR (__PP| 0|_USR|___A|__NX| 0| 0|___G)
#define __PAGE_KERNEL_LARGE (__PP|__RW| 0|___A|__NX|___D|_PSE|___G)
#define __PAGE_KERNEL_LARGE_EXEC (__PP|__RW| 0|___A| 0|___D|_PSE|___G)
#define __PAGE_KERNEL_WP (__PP|__RW| 0|___A|__NX|___D| 0|___G| __WP)
diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c b/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
index 2e5a045731de..af2267a9cdab 100644
--- a/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
+++ b/arch/x86/mm/pat/set_memory.c
@@ -2026,7 +2026,7 @@ int set_memory_nx(unsigned long addr, int numpages)

int set_memory_ro(unsigned long addr, int numpages)
{
- return change_page_attr_clear(&addr, numpages, __pgprot(_PAGE_RW), 0);
+ return change_page_attr_clear(&addr, numpages, __pgprot(_PAGE_RW | _PAGE_DIRTY), 0);
}

int set_memory_rw(unsigned long addr, int numpages)
--
2.17.1