Re: [PATCH 02/18] x86/asm/64: Split the iret-to-user and iret-to-kernel paths

Andy Lutomirski
2017-11-01T11:34:28Z

On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com> wrote:
> On 10/26/2017 01:26 AM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>> +GLOBAL(restore_regs_and_return_to_usermode)
>> +#ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_ENTRY
>> + testl $3, CS(%rsp)
>> + jnz 1f
>> + ud2
>
> A nit from the mere mortals in the audience: Could we start commenting
> or make a constant for the user segment bits in CS?

Yeah. We have such a define, but it's not currently usable from asm.
Also, we can't do the obvious:

testl $SEGMENT_RPL_MASK, ...
jump_if_not_equal_to_KERNEL_RPL

because that makes no sense in asm :(

>
> Also, it would be nice to explain what's going on here. Maybe:
>
> /*
> * We think we are returning to the kernel. Check the
> * registers we are about to restore and if we appear to
> * be returning to userspace, do something that will cause
> * a fault and hopefully an oops report.
> */
>
> Otherwise, I really like this change. It's really hard to figure out
> what the context is in the entry assembly in a lot of cases. It's a
> place where code reuse actually makes things harder to follow.