Re: [PATCH v4 00/15] x86: Add support for Clang CFI

Josh Poimboeuf
2021-10-05T20:37:04Z

On Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 11:05:16AM -0700, Sami Tolvanen wrote:
> This series adds support for Clang's Control-Flow Integrity (CFI)
> checking to x86_64. With CFI, the compiler injects a runtime
> check before each indirect function call to ensure the target is
> a valid function with the correct static type. This restricts
> possible call targets and makes it more difficult for an attacker
> to exploit bugs that allow the modification of stored function
> pointers. For more details, see:
>
> https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ControlFlowIntegrity.html
>
> Note that v4 is based on tip/master. The first two patches contain
> objtool support for CFI, the remaining patches change function
> declarations to use opaque types, fix type mismatch issues that
> confuse the compiler, and disable CFI where it can't be used.
>
> You can also pull this series from
>
> https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux.git x86-cfi-v4

Does this work for indirect calls made from alternatives?

I'm also wondering whether this works on CONFIG_RETPOLINE systems which
disable retpolines at runtime, combined with Peter's patch to use
objtool to replace retpoline thunk calls with indirect branches:

9bc0bb50727c ("objtool/x86: Rewrite retpoline thunk calls")

Since presumably objtool runs after the CFI stuff is inserted.

--
Josh