[PATCH v22 4/8] fork: Add shadow stack support to clone3()

Mark Brown
2025-10-15T12:58:47Z

Unlike with the normal stack there is no API for configuring the shadow
stack for a new thread, instead the kernel will dynamically allocate a
new shadow stack with the same size as the normal stack. This appears to
be due to the shadow stack series having been in development since
before the more extensible clone3() was added rather than anything more
deliberate.

Add a parameter to clone3() specifying a shadow stack pointer to use
for the new thread, this is inconsistent with the way we specify the
normal stack but during review concerns were expressed about having to
identify where the shadow stack pointer should be placed especially in
cases where the shadow stack has been previously active. If no shadow
stack is specified then the existing implicit allocation behaviour is
maintained.

If a shadow stack pointer is specified then it is required to have an
architecture defined token placed on the stack, this will be consumed by
the new task, the shadow stack is specified by pointing to this token. If
no valid token is present then this will be reported with -EINVAL. This
token prevents new threads being created pointing at the shadow stack of
an existing running thread. On architectures with support for userspace
pivoting of shadow stacks it is expected that the same format and placement
of tokens will be used, this is the case for arm64 and x86.

If the architecture does not support shadow stacks the shadow stack
pointer must be not be specified, architectures that do support the
feature are expected to enforce the same requirement on individual
systems that lack shadow stack support.

Update the existing arm64 and x86 implementations to pay attention to
the newly added arguments, in order to maintain compatibility we use the
existing behaviour if no shadow stack is specified. Since we are now
using more fields from the kernel_clone_args we pass that into the
shadow stack code rather than individual fields.

Portions of the x86 architecture code were written by Rick Edgecombe.

Acked-by: Yury Khrustalev <yury.khrustalev@arm.com>
Reviewed-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Mark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>
---
arch/arm64/mm/gcs.c | 47 +++++++++++++++++++-
arch/x86/include/asm/shstk.h | 11 +++--
arch/x86/kernel/process.c | 2 +-
arch/x86/kernel/shstk.c | 53 ++++++++++++++++++++---
include/asm-generic/cacheflush.h | 11 +++++
include/linux/sched/task.h | 17 ++++++++
include/uapi/linux/sched.h | 9 ++--
kernel/fork.c | 93 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
8 files changed, 217 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/gcs.c b/arch/arm64/mm/gcs.c
index 3abcbf9adb5c..fd1d5a6655de 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/mm/gcs.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/mm/gcs.c
@@ -43,8 +43,23 @@ int gcs_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *tsk,
{
unsigned long addr, size;

- if (!system_supports_gcs())
+ if (!system_supports_gcs()) {
+ if (args->shstk_token)
+ return -EINVAL;
+
return 0;
+ }
+
+ /*
+ * If the user specified a GCS then use it, otherwise fall
+ * back to a default allocation strategy. Validation is done
+ * in arch_shstk_validate_clone().
+ */
+ if (args->shstk_token) {
+ tsk->thread.gcs_base = 0;
+ tsk->thread.gcs_size = 0;
+ return 0;
+ }

if (!task_gcs_el0_enabled(tsk))
return 0;
@@ -68,6 +83,36 @@ int gcs_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *tsk,
return 0;
}

+static bool gcs_consume_token(struct vm_area_struct *vma, struct page *page,
+ unsigned long user_addr)
+{
+ u64 expected = GCS_CAP(user_addr);
+ u64 *token = page_address(page) + offset_in_page(user_addr);
+
+ if (!cmpxchg_to_user_page(vma, page, user_addr, token, expected, 0))
+ return false;
+ set_page_dirty_lock(page);
+
+ return true;
+}
+
+int arch_shstk_validate_clone(struct task_struct *tsk,
+ struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+ struct page *page,
+ struct kernel_clone_args *args)
+{
+ unsigned long gcspr_el0;
+ int ret = 0;
+
+ gcspr_el0 = args->shstk_token;
+ if (!gcs_consume_token(vma, page, gcspr_el0))
+ return -EINVAL;
+
+ tsk->thread.gcspr_el0 = gcspr_el0 + sizeof(u64);
+
+ return ret;
+}
+
SYSCALL_DEFINE3(map_shadow_stack, unsigned long, addr, unsigned long, size, unsigned int, flags)
{
unsigned long alloc_size;
diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/shstk.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/shstk.h
index fc7dcec58fd4..42a5f03a51e2 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/shstk.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/shstk.h
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
#include <linux/types.h>

struct task_struct;
+struct kernel_clone_args;
struct ksignal;

#ifdef CONFIG_X86_USER_SHADOW_STACK
@@ -16,8 +17,8 @@ struct thread_shstk {

long shstk_prctl(struct task_struct *task, int option, unsigned long arg2);
void reset_thread_features(void);
-unsigned long shstk_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *p, u64 clone_flags,
- unsigned long stack_size);
+unsigned long shstk_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *p,
+ const struct kernel_clone_args *args);
void shstk_free(struct task_struct *p);
int setup_signal_shadow_stack(struct ksignal *ksig);
int restore_signal_shadow_stack(void);
@@ -30,8 +31,10 @@ static inline long shstk_prctl(struct task_struct *task, int option,
unsigned long arg2) { return -EINVAL; }
static inline void reset_thread_features(void) {}
static inline unsigned long shstk_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *p,
- u64 clone_flags,
- unsigned long stack_size) { return 0; }
+ const struct kernel_clone_args *args)
+{
+ return 0;
+}
static inline void shstk_free(struct task_struct *p) {}
static inline int setup_signal_shadow_stack(struct ksignal *ksig) { return 0; }
static inline int restore_signal_shadow_stack(void) { return 0; }
diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/process.c b/arch/x86/kernel/process.c
index 4c718f8adc59..449da29a9f92 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/process.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/process.c
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ int copy_thread(struct task_struct *p, const struct kernel_clone_args *args)
* is disabled, new_ssp will remain 0, and fpu_clone() will know not to
* update it.
*/
- new_ssp = shstk_alloc_thread_stack(p, clone_flags, args->stack_size);
+ new_ssp = shstk_alloc_thread_stack(p, args);
if (IS_ERR_VALUE(new_ssp))
return PTR_ERR((void *)new_ssp);

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/shstk.c b/arch/x86/kernel/shstk.c
index 978232b6d48d..d66c866274d0 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/shstk.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/shstk.c
@@ -191,18 +191,61 @@ void reset_thread_features(void)
current->thread.features_locked = 0;
}

-unsigned long shstk_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *tsk, u64 clone_flags,
- unsigned long stack_size)
+int arch_shstk_validate_clone(struct task_struct *t,
+ struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+ struct page *page,
+ struct kernel_clone_args *args)
+{
+ void *maddr = page_address(page);
+ unsigned long token;
+ int offset;
+ u64 expected;
+
+ /*
+ * kernel_clone_args() verification assures token address is 8
+ * byte aligned.
+ */
+ token = args->shstk_token;
+ expected = (token + SS_FRAME_SIZE) | BIT(0);
+ offset = offset_in_page(token);
+
+ if (!cmpxchg_to_user_page(vma, page, token, (unsigned long *)(maddr + offset),
+ expected, 0))
+ return -EINVAL;
+ set_page_dirty_lock(page);
+
+ return 0;
+}
+
+unsigned long shstk_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *tsk,
+ const struct kernel_clone_args *args)
{
struct thread_shstk *shstk = &tsk->thread.shstk;
+ u64 clone_flags = args->flags;
unsigned long addr, size;

/*
* If shadow stack is not enabled on the new thread, skip any
- * switch to a new shadow stack.
+ * implicit switch to a new shadow stack and reject attempts to
+ * explicitly specify one.
*/
- if (!features_enabled(ARCH_SHSTK_SHSTK))
+ if (!features_enabled(ARCH_SHSTK_SHSTK)) {
+ if (args->shstk_token)
+ return (unsigned long)ERR_PTR(-EINVAL);
+
return 0;
+ }
+
+ /*
+ * If the user specified a shadow stack then use it, otherwise
+ * fall back to a default allocation strategy. Validation is
+ * done in arch_shstk_validate_clone().
+ */
+ if (args->shstk_token) {
+ shstk->base = 0;
+ shstk->size = 0;
+ return args->shstk_token + 8;
+ }

/*
* For CLONE_VFORK the child will share the parents shadow stack.
@@ -222,7 +265,7 @@ unsigned long shstk_alloc_thread_stack(struct task_struct *tsk, u64 clone_flags,
if (!(clone_flags & CLONE_VM))
return 0;

- size = adjust_shstk_size(stack_size);
+ size = adjust_shstk_size(args->stack_size);
addr = alloc_shstk(0, size, 0, false);
if (IS_ERR_VALUE(addr))
return addr;
diff --git a/include/asm-generic/cacheflush.h b/include/asm-generic/cacheflush.h
index 7ee8a179d103..96cc0c7a5c90 100644
--- a/include/asm-generic/cacheflush.h
+++ b/include/asm-generic/cacheflush.h
@@ -124,4 +124,15 @@ static inline void flush_cache_vunmap(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
} while (0)
#endif

+#ifndef cmpxchg_to_user_page
+#define cmpxchg_to_user_page(vma, page, vaddr, ptr, old, new) \
+({ \
+ bool ret; \
+ \
+ ret = try_cmpxchg(ptr, &old, new); \
+ flush_icache_user_page(vma, page, vaddr, sizeof(*ptr)); \
+ ret; \
+})
+#endif
+
#endif /* _ASM_GENERIC_CACHEFLUSH_H */
diff --git a/include/linux/sched/task.h b/include/linux/sched/task.h
index 525aa2a632b2..7f860edc58da 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched/task.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched/task.h
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ struct task_struct;
struct rusage;
union thread_union;
struct css_set;
+struct vm_area_struct;

/* All the bits taken by the old clone syscall. */
#define CLONE_LEGACY_FLAGS 0xffffffffULL
@@ -44,6 +45,7 @@ struct kernel_clone_args {
struct cgroup *cgrp;
struct css_set *cset;
unsigned int kill_seq;
+ unsigned long shstk_token;
};

/*
@@ -225,4 +227,19 @@ static inline void task_unlock(struct task_struct *p)

DEFINE_GUARD(task_lock, struct task_struct *, task_lock(_T), task_unlock(_T))

+#ifdef CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_USER_SHADOW_STACK
+int arch_shstk_validate_clone(struct task_struct *p,
+ struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+ struct page *page,
+ struct kernel_clone_args *args);
+#else
+static inline int arch_shstk_validate_clone(struct task_struct *p,
+ struct vm_area_struct *vma,
+ struct page *page,
+ struct kernel_clone_args *args)
+{
+ return 0;
+}
+#endif
+
#endif /* _LINUX_SCHED_TASK_H */
diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/sched.h b/include/uapi/linux/sched.h
index 359a14cc76a4..7e18e7b3df3a 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/sched.h
@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@
* kernel's limit of nested PID namespaces.
* @cgroup: If CLONE_INTO_CGROUP is specified set this to
* a file descriptor for the cgroup.
+ * @shstk_token: Pointer to shadow stack token at top of stack.
*
* The structure is versioned by size and thus extensible.
* New struct members must go at the end of the struct and
@@ -101,12 +102,14 @@ struct clone_args {
__aligned_u64 set_tid;
__aligned_u64 set_tid_size;
__aligned_u64 cgroup;
+ __aligned_u64 shstk_token;
};
#endif

-#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER0 64 /* sizeof first published struct */
-#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER1 80 /* sizeof second published struct */
-#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER2 88 /* sizeof third published struct */
+#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER0 64 /* sizeof first published struct */
+#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER1 80 /* sizeof second published struct */
+#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER2 88 /* sizeof third published struct */
+#define CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER3 96 /* sizeof fourth published struct */

/*
* Scheduling policies
diff --git a/kernel/fork.c b/kernel/fork.c
index 3da0f08615a9..a0b8eeeb1d27 100644
--- a/kernel/fork.c
+++ b/kernel/fork.c
@@ -1915,6 +1915,51 @@ static bool need_futex_hash_allocate_default(u64 clone_flags)
return true;
}

+static int shstk_validate_clone(struct task_struct *p,
+ struct kernel_clone_args *args)
+{
+ struct mm_struct *mm;
+ struct vm_area_struct *vma;
+ struct page *page;
+ unsigned long addr;
+ int ret;
+
+ if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_USER_SHADOW_STACK))
+ return 0;
+
+ if (!args->shstk_token)
+ return 0;
+
+ mm = get_task_mm(p);
+ if (!mm)
+ return -EFAULT;
+
+ mmap_read_lock(mm);
+
+ addr = untagged_addr_remote(mm, args->shstk_token);
+ page = get_user_page_vma_remote(mm, addr, FOLL_FORCE | FOLL_WRITE,
+ &vma);
+ if (IS_ERR(page)) {
+ ret = -EFAULT;
+ goto out;
+ }
+
+ if (!(vma->vm_flags & VM_SHADOW_STACK) ||
+ !(vma->vm_flags & VM_WRITE)) {
+ ret = -EFAULT;
+ goto out_page;
+ }
+
+ ret = arch_shstk_validate_clone(p, vma, page, args);
+
+out_page:
+ put_page(page);
+out:
+ mmap_read_unlock(mm);
+ mmput(mm);
+ return ret;
+}
+
/*
* This creates a new process as a copy of the old one,
* but does not actually start it yet.
@@ -2188,6 +2233,9 @@ __latent_entropy struct task_struct *copy_process(
if (retval)
goto bad_fork_cleanup_namespaces;
retval = copy_thread(p, args);
+ if (retval)
+ goto bad_fork_cleanup_io;
+ retval = shstk_validate_clone(p, args);
if (retval)
goto bad_fork_cleanup_io;

@@ -2765,7 +2813,9 @@ static noinline int copy_clone_args_from_user(struct kernel_clone_args *kargs,
CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER1);
BUILD_BUG_ON(offsetofend(struct clone_args, cgroup) !=
CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER2);
- BUILD_BUG_ON(sizeof(struct clone_args) != CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER2);
+ BUILD_BUG_ON(offsetofend(struct clone_args, shstk_token) !=
+ CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER3);
+ BUILD_BUG_ON(sizeof(struct clone_args) != CLONE_ARGS_SIZE_VER3);

if (unlikely(usize > PAGE_SIZE))
return -E2BIG;
@@ -2798,16 +2848,17 @@ static noinline int copy_clone_args_from_user(struct kernel_clone_args *kargs,
return -EINVAL;

*kargs = (struct kernel_clone_args){
- .flags = args.flags,
- .pidfd = u64_to_user_ptr(args.pidfd),
- .child_tid = u64_to_user_ptr(args.child_tid),
- .parent_tid = u64_to_user_ptr(args.parent_tid),
- .exit_signal = args.exit_signal,
- .stack = args.stack,
- .stack_size = args.stack_size,
- .tls = args.tls,
- .set_tid_size = args.set_tid_size,
- .cgroup = args.cgroup,
+ .flags = args.flags,
+ .pidfd = u64_to_user_ptr(args.pidfd),
+ .child_tid = u64_to_user_ptr(args.child_tid),
+ .parent_tid = u64_to_user_ptr(args.parent_tid),
+ .exit_signal = args.exit_signal,
+ .stack = args.stack,
+ .stack_size = args.stack_size,
+ .tls = args.tls,
+ .set_tid_size = args.set_tid_size,
+ .cgroup = args.cgroup,
+ .shstk_token = args.shstk_token,
};

if (args.set_tid &&
@@ -2848,6 +2899,24 @@ static inline bool clone3_stack_valid(struct kernel_clone_args *kargs)
return true;
}

+/**
+ * clone3_shadow_stack_valid - check and prepare shadow stack
+ * @kargs: kernel clone args
+ *
+ * Verify that shadow stacks are only enabled if supported.
+ */
+static inline bool clone3_shadow_stack_valid(struct kernel_clone_args *kargs)
+{
+ if (!kargs->shstk_token)
+ return true;
+
+ if (!IS_ALIGNED(kargs->shstk_token, sizeof(void *)))
+ return false;
+
+ /* Fail if the kernel wasn't built with shadow stacks */
+ return IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_USER_SHADOW_STACK);
+}
+
static bool clone3_args_valid(struct kernel_clone_args *kargs)
{
/* Verify that no unknown flags are passed along. */
@@ -2870,7 +2939,7 @@ static bool clone3_args_valid(struct kernel_clone_args *kargs)
kargs->exit_signal)
return false;

- if (!clone3_stack_valid(kargs))
+ if (!clone3_stack_valid(kargs) || !clone3_shadow_stack_valid(kargs))
return false;

return true;

--
2.47.2