Re: [PATCH 1/2] start_kernel: add no_stack_protector fn attr

Michael Ellerman
2023-04-14T00:11:00Z

ndesaulniers@google.com writes:
> Back during the discussion of
> commit a9a3ed1eff36 ("x86: Fix early boot crash on gcc-10, third try")
> we discussed the need for a function attribute to control the omission
> of stack protectors on a per-function basis; at the time Clang had
> support for no_stack_protector but GCC did not. This was fixed in
> gcc-11. Now that the function attribute is available, let's start using
> it.
>
> Callers of boot_init_stack_canary need to use this function attribute
> unless they're compiled with -fno-stack-protector, otherwise the canary
> stored in the stack slot of the caller will differ upon the call to
> boot_init_stack_canary. This will lead to a call to __stack_chk_fail
> then panic.
>
> Link: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=94722
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20200316130414.GC12561@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net/
> Signed-off-by: Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
> ---
> arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c | 1 +
> include/linux/compiler_attributes.h | 12 ++++++++++++
> init/main.c | 3 ++-
> 3 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c
> index 6b90f10a6c81..7d4c12b1abb7 100644
> --- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c
> +++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c
> @@ -1603,6 +1603,7 @@ static void add_cpu_to_masks(int cpu)
> }
>
> /* Activate a secondary processor. */
> +__no_stack_protector
> void start_secondary(void *unused)
> {
> unsigned int cpu = raw_smp_processor_id();

start_secondary() doesn't return, so it won't actually crash, but it
obviously makes sense for it to be marked with __no_stack_protector.

There's quite a few other places we could add __no_stack_protector
annotations in powerpc code, and then make the changes to CFLAGS to
disable stack protector conditional on GCC < 11.

So I guess this patch is fine, but there's more that could be done.

Acked-by: Michael Ellerman <mpe@ellerman.id.au> (powerpc)

cheers