Re: [PATCHv7 10/14] x86/mm: Avoid load_unaligned_zeropad() stepping into unaccepted memory

Andy Lutomirski
2022-07-26T20:17:39Z

On Tue, Jun 14, 2022, at 5:02 AM, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> load_unaligned_zeropad() can lead to unwanted loads across page boundaries.
> The unwanted loads are typically harmless. But, they might be made to
> totally unrelated or even unmapped memory. load_unaligned_zeropad()
> relies on exception fixup (#PF, #GP and now #VE) to recover from these
> unwanted loads.
>
> But, this approach does not work for unaccepted memory. For TDX, a load
> from unaccepted memory will not lead to a recoverable exception within
> the guest. The guest will exit to the VMM where the only recourse is to
> terminate the guest.

Why is unaccepted memory marked present in the direct map in the first place?

Having kernel code assume that every valid address is followed by several bytes of memory that may be read without side effects other than #PF also seems like a mistake, but I probably won’t win that fight. But sticking guard pages in front of definitely-not-logically present pages seems silly to me. Let’s just not map it.

(What if MMIO memory is mapped next to regular memory? Doing random unaligned reads that cross into MMIO seems unwise.)