[PATCH v3 01/37] Documentation/x86: Add CET description

Rick Edgecombe
2022-11-04T22:39:33Z

From: Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>

Introduce a new document on Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET).

Tested-by: Pengfei Xu <pengfei.xu@intel.com>
Tested-by: John Allen <john.allen@amd.com>
Signed-off-by: Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>
Co-developed-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>

---

v3:
- Clarify kernel IBT is supported by the kernel. (Kees, Andrew Cooper)
- Clarify which arch_prctl's can take multiple bits. (Kees)
- Describe ASLR characteristics of thread shadow stacks. (Kees)
- Add exec section. (Andrew Cooper)
- Fix some capitalization (Bagas Sanjaya)
- Update new location of enablement status proc.
- Add info about new user_shstk software capability.
- Add more info about what the kernel pushes to the shadow stack on
signal.

v2:
- Updated to new arch_prctl() API
- Add bit about new proc status

v1:
- Update and clarify the docs.
- Moved kernel parameters documentation to other patch.

Documentation/x86/cet.rst | 147 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Documentation/x86/index.rst | 1 +
2 files changed, 148 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/x86/cet.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/x86/cet.rst b/Documentation/x86/cet.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..b56811566531
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/x86/cet.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,147 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=========================================
+Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET)
+=========================================
+
+Overview
+========
+
+Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) is term referring to several
+related x86 processor features that provides protection against control
+flow hijacking attacks. The HW feature itself can be set up to protect
+both applications and the kernel.
+
+CET introduces Shadow Stack and Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT). Shadow stack
+is a secondary stack allocated from memory and cannot be directly modified by
+applications. When executing a CALL instruction, the processor pushes the
+return address to both the normal stack and the shadow stack. Upon
+function return, the processor pops the shadow stack copy and compares it
+to the normal stack copy. If the two differ, the processor raises a
+control-protection fault. IBT verifies indirect CALL/JMP targets are intended
+as marked by the compiler with 'ENDBR' opcodes. Not all CPU's have both Shadow
+Stack and Indirect Branch Tracking. Today in the 64-bit kernel, only userspace
+Shadow Stack and kernel IBT is supported in the kernel.
+
+The Kconfig option is X86_USER_SHADOW_STACK, and it can be disabled with
+the kernel parameter clearcpuid, like this: "clearcpuid=user_shstk".
+
+To build a user shadow stack enabled kernel, Binutils v2.29 or LLVM v6 or later
+are required.
+
+At run time, /proc/cpuinfo shows CET features if the processor supports
+CET. "shstk" and "ibt" relate to the individual HW features. "user_shstk"
+relates to whether the userspace shadow stack specifically is supported.
+
+Application Enabling
+====================
+
+An application's CET capability is marked in its ELF note and can be verified
+from readelf/llvm-readelf output:
+
+ readelf -n <application> | grep -a SHSTK
+ properties: x86 feature: SHSTK
+
+The kernel does not process these applications markers directly. Applications
+or loaders must enable CET features using the interface described in section 4.
+Typically this would be done in dynamic loader or static runtime objects, as is
+the case in GLIBC.
+
+CET arch_prctl()'s
+==================
+
+Elf features should be enabled by the loader using the below arch_prctl's.
+
+arch_prctl(ARCH_CET_ENABLE, unsigned int feature)
+ Enable a single feature specified in 'feature'. Can only operate on
+ one feature at a time.
+
+arch_prctl(ARCH_CET_DISABLE, unsigned int feature)
+ Disable a single feature specified in 'feature'. Can only operate on
+ one feature at a time.
+
+arch_prctl(ARCH_CET_LOCK, unsigned int features)
+ Lock in features at their current enabled or disabled status. 'features'
+ is a mask of all features to lock. All bits set are processed, unset bits
+ are ignored. The mask is ORed with the existing value. So any feature bits
+ set here cannot be enabled or disabled afterwards.
+
+The return values are as following:
+ On success, return 0. On error, errno can be::
+
+ -EPERM if any of the passed feature are locked.
+ -EOPNOTSUPP if the feature is not supported by the hardware or
+ disabled by kernel parameter.
+ -EINVAL arguments (non existing feature, etc)
+
+Currently shadow stack and WRSS are supported via this interface. WRSS
+can only be enabled with shadow stack, and is automatically disabled
+if shadow stack is disabled.
+
+Proc status
+===========
+To check if an application is actually running with shadow stack, the
+user can read the /proc/$PID/status. It will report "wrss" or "shstk"
+depending on what is enabled. The lines look like this::
+
+ x86_Thread_features: shstk wrss
+ x86_Thread_features_locked: shstk wrss
+
+The implementation of the Shadow Stack
+======================================
+
+Shadow Stack size
+-----------------
+
+A task's shadow stack is allocated from memory to a fixed size of
+MIN(RLIMIT_STACK, 4 GB). In other words, the shadow stack is allocated to
+the maximum size of the normal stack, but capped to 4 GB. However,
+a compat-mode application's address space is smaller, each of its thread's
+shadow stack size is MIN(1/4 RLIMIT_STACK, 4 GB).
+
+Signal
+------
+
+By default, the main program and its signal handlers use the same shadow
+stack. Because the shadow stack stores only return addresses, a large
+shadow stack covers the condition that both the program stack and the
+signal alternate stack run out.
+
+When a signal happens, the old pre-signal state is pushed on the stack. When
+shadow stack is enabled, the shadow stack specific state is pushed onto the
+shadow stack. Today this is only the old SSP (shadow stack pointer), pushed
+in a special format with bit 63 set. On sigreturn this old SSP token is
+verified and restored by the kernel. The kernel will also push the normal
+restorer address to the shadow stack to help userspace avoid a shadow stack
+violation on the sigreturn path that goes through the restorer.
+
+So the shadow stack signal frame format is as follows::
+
+ |1...old SSP| - Pointer to old pre-signal ssp in sigframe token format
+ (bit 63 set to 1)
+ | ...| - Other state may be added in the future
+
+
+
+Fork
+----
+
+The shadow stack's vma has VM_SHADOW_STACK flag set; its PTEs are required
+to be read-only and dirty. When a shadow stack PTE is not RO and dirty, a
+shadow access triggers a page fault with the shadow stack access bit set
+in the page fault error code.
+
+When a task forks a child, its shadow stack PTEs are copied and both the
+parent's and the child's shadow stack PTEs are cleared of the dirty bit.
+Upon the next shadow stack access, the resulting shadow stack page fault
+is handled by page copy/re-use.
+
+When a pthread child is created, the kernel allocates a new shadow stack
+for the new thread. New shadow stack's behave like mmap() with respect to
+ASLR behavior.
+
+Exec
+----
+
+On exec, shadow stack features are disabled by the kernel. At which point,
+userspace can choose to re-enable, or lock them.
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/index.rst b/Documentation/x86/index.rst
index c73d133fd37c..9ac03055c4b5 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/x86/index.rst
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ x86-specific Documentation
mtrr
pat
intel-hfi
+ cet
iommu
intel_txt
amd-memory-encryption
--
2.17.1