[PATCH 4.9 31/31] Documentation: Add ITLB_MULTIHIT documentation

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2019-11-15T06:23:04Z

From: "Gomez Iglesias, Antonio" <antonio.gomez.iglesias@intel.com>

commit 7f00cc8d4a51074eb0ad4c3f16c15757b1ddfb7d upstream.

Add the initial ITLB_MULTIHIT documentation.

[ tglx: Add it to the index so it gets actually built. ]

Signed-off-by: Antonio Gomez Iglesias <antonio.gomez.iglesias@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Nelson D'Souza <nelson.dsouza@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
[bwh: Backported to 4.9: adjust filenames]
Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
Documentation/hw-vuln/index.rst | 1
Documentation/hw-vuln/multihit.rst | 163 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 164 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/hw-vuln/multihit.rst

--- a/Documentation/hw-vuln/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/hw-vuln/index.rst
@@ -12,3 +12,4 @@ are configurable at compile, boot or run
l1tf
mds
tsx_async_abort
+ multihit.rst
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/hw-vuln/multihit.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+iTLB multihit
+=============
+
+iTLB multihit is an erratum where some processors may incur a machine check
+error, possibly resulting in an unrecoverable CPU lockup, when an
+instruction fetch hits multiple entries in the instruction TLB. This can
+occur when the page size is changed along with either the physical address
+or cache type. A malicious guest running on a virtualized system can
+exploit this erratum to perform a denial of service attack.
+
+
+Affected processors
+-------------------
+
+Variations of this erratum are present on most Intel Core and Xeon processor
+models. The erratum is not present on:
+
+ - non-Intel processors
+
+ - Some Atoms (Airmont, Bonnell, Goldmont, GoldmontPlus, Saltwell, Silvermont)
+
+ - Intel processors that have the PSCHANGE_MC_NO bit set in the
+ IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES MSR.
+
+
+Related CVEs
+------------
+
+The following CVE entry is related to this issue:
+
+ ============== =================================================
+ CVE-2018-12207 Machine Check Error Avoidance on Page Size Change
+ ============== =================================================
+
+
+Problem
+-------
+
+Privileged software, including OS and virtual machine managers (VMM), are in
+charge of memory management. A key component in memory management is the control
+of the page tables. Modern processors use virtual memory, a technique that creates
+the illusion of a very large memory for processors. This virtual space is split
+into pages of a given size. Page tables translate virtual addresses to physical
+addresses.
+
+To reduce latency when performing a virtual to physical address translation,
+processors include a structure, called TLB, that caches recent translations.
+There are separate TLBs for instruction (iTLB) and data (dTLB).
+
+Under this errata, instructions are fetched from a linear address translated
+using a 4 KB translation cached in the iTLB. Privileged software modifies the
+paging structure so that the same linear address using large page size (2 MB, 4
+MB, 1 GB) with a different physical address or memory type. After the page
+structure modification but before the software invalidates any iTLB entries for
+the linear address, a code fetch that happens on the same linear address may
+cause a machine-check error which can result in a system hang or shutdown.
+
+
+Attack scenarios
+----------------
+
+Attacks against the iTLB multihit erratum can be mounted from malicious
+guests in a virtualized system.
+
+
+iTLB multihit system information
+--------------------------------
+
+The Linux kernel provides a sysfs interface to enumerate the current iTLB
+multihit status of the system:whether the system is vulnerable and which
+mitigations are active. The relevant sysfs file is:
+
+/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/itlb_multihit
+
+The possible values in this file are:
+
+.. list-table::
+
+ * - Not affected
+ - The processor is not vulnerable.
+ * - KVM: Mitigation: Split huge pages
+ - Software changes mitigate this issue.
+ * - KVM: Vulnerable
+ - The processor is vulnerable, but no mitigation enabled
+
+
+Enumeration of the erratum
+--------------------------------
+
+A new bit has been allocated in the IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES (PSCHANGE_MC_NO) msr
+and will be set on CPU's which are mitigated against this issue.
+
+ ======================================= =========== ===============================
+ IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES MSR Not present Possibly vulnerable,check model
+ IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES[PSCHANGE_MC_NO] '0' Likely vulnerable,check model
+ IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES[PSCHANGE_MC_NO] '1' Not vulnerable
+ ======================================= =========== ===============================
+
+
+Mitigation mechanism
+-------------------------
+
+This erratum can be mitigated by restricting the use of large page sizes to
+non-executable pages. This forces all iTLB entries to be 4K, and removes
+the possibility of multiple hits.
+
+In order to mitigate the vulnerability, KVM initially marks all huge pages
+as non-executable. If the guest attempts to execute in one of those pages,
+the page is broken down into 4K pages, which are then marked executable.
+
+If EPT is disabled or not available on the host, KVM is in control of TLB
+flushes and the problematic situation cannot happen. However, the shadow
+EPT paging mechanism used by nested virtualization is vulnerable, because
+the nested guest can trigger multiple iTLB hits by modifying its own
+(non-nested) page tables. For simplicity, KVM will make large pages
+non-executable in all shadow paging modes.
+
+Mitigation control on the kernel command line and KVM - module parameter
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The KVM hypervisor mitigation mechanism for marking huge pages as
+non-executable can be controlled with a module parameter "nx_huge_pages=".
+The kernel command line allows to control the iTLB multihit mitigations at
+boot time with the option "kvm.nx_huge_pages=".
+
+The valid arguments for these options are:
+
+ ========== ================================================================
+ force Mitigation is enabled. In this case, the mitigation implements
+ non-executable huge pages in Linux kernel KVM module. All huge
+ pages in the EPT are marked as non-executable.
+ If a guest attempts to execute in one of those pages, the page is
+ broken down into 4K pages, which are then marked executable.
+
+ off Mitigation is disabled.
+
+ auto Enable mitigation only if the platform is affected and the kernel
+ was not booted with the "mitigations=off" command line parameter.
+ This is the default option.
+ ========== ================================================================
+
+
+Mitigation selection guide
+--------------------------
+
+1. No virtualization in use
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+ The system is protected by the kernel unconditionally and no further
+ action is required.
+
+2. Virtualization with trusted guests
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+ If the guest comes from a trusted source, you may assume that the guest will
+ not attempt to maliciously exploit these errata and no further action is
+ required.
+
+3. Virtualization with untrusted guests
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+ If the guest comes from an untrusted source, the guest host kernel will need
+ to apply iTLB multihit mitigation via the kernel command line or kvm
+ module parameter.