From: Brendan Jackman <jackmanb@google.com>
To: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>,
Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>,
Balbir Singh <sblbir@amazon.com>
Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
Brendan Jackman <jackmanb@google.com>,
Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Documentation: clarify PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 17:02:05 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20251015-l1d-flush-doc-v1-1-f8cefea3f2f2@google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20251015-l1d-flush-doc-v1-0-f8cefea3f2f2@google.com>
For PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS and PR_SPEC_INDIRECT_BRANCH, PR_SPEC_DISABLE
means "disable the speculation bug" i.e. "enable the mitigation".
For PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH, PR_SPEC_DISABLE means "disable the mitigation".
This is not obvious, so document it.
Signed-off-by: Brendan Jackman <jackmanb@google.com>
---
Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst | 6 +++++-
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
index 5e8ed9eef9aa84f12fa255af7b15c163ff01aab8..ca89151fc0a8e7205e0a0062134d63b213b9ef11 100644
--- a/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
+++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
@@ -26,7 +26,8 @@ PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL
PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL returns the state of the speculation misfeature
which is selected with arg2 of prctl(2). The return value uses bits 0-3 with
-the following meaning:
+the following meaning (with the caveat that PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH has less obvious
+semantics, see documentation for that specific control below):
==== ====================== ==================================================
Bit Define Description
@@ -110,6 +111,9 @@ Speculation misfeature controls
- PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH: Flush L1D Cache on context switch out of the task
(works only when tasks run on non SMT cores)
+For this control, PR_SPEC_ENABLE means that the **mitigation** is enabled (L1D
+is flushed), PR_SPEC_DISABLE means it is disabled.
+
Invocations:
* prctl(PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH, 0, 0, 0);
* prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH, PR_SPEC_ENABLE, 0, 0);
--
2.50.1
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-10-15 17:02 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-10-15 17:02 [PATCH 0/2] Documentation: fixups for L1D flushing Brendan Jackman
2025-10-15 17:02 ` Brendan Jackman [this message]
2025-10-15 21:41 ` [PATCH 1/2] Documentation: clarify PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH Kees Cook
2025-10-15 23:42 ` Josh Poimboeuf
2025-10-16 8:28 ` Brendan Jackman
2025-10-15 17:02 ` [PATCH 2/2] Documentation: fix reference to PR_SPEC_L1D_FLUSH Brendan Jackman
2025-10-16 14:54 ` [PATCH 0/2] Documentation: fixups for L1D flushing Brendan Jackman
2025-10-30 14:00 ` Brendan Jackman
2025-10-29 16:15 ` Jonathan Corbet
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