Re: [PATCH net-next] vhost: use "checked" versions of get_user() and put_user()

David Laight
2025-11-14T21:38:11Z

On Fri, 14 Nov 2025 12:48:52 -0800
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Nov 2025 at 11:09, David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I think that is currently only x86-64?
> > There are patches in the pipeline for ppc.
> > I don't think I've seen anything for arm32 or arm64.
>
> Honestly, the fact that it's mainly true on x86-64 is simply because
> that's the only architecture that has cared enough.
>
> Pretty much everybody else is affected by the exact same speculation
> bugs. Sometimes the speculation window might be so small that it
> doesn't matter, but in most cases it's just that the architecture is
> so irrelevant that it doesn't matter.
>
> So no, this is not a "x86 only" issue. It might be a "only a couple of
> architectures have cared enough for it to have any practical impact".
>
> End result: if some other architecture still has a __get_user() that
> is noticeably faster than get_user(), it's not an argument for keeping
> __get_user() - it's an argument that that architecture likely isn't
> very important.

I was really thinking it was a justification to get the 'address masking'
implemented for other architectures.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of the justifications for the 'guard page'
at the top of x86-64 userspace (like speculative execution across the
user-kernel boundary) aren't a more general problem.

So adding support to arm32, arm64, riscV and 32bit x86 might be reasonable.
What does that really leave? sparc, m68k?

At that point requiring a guard page for all architectures starts looking
reasonable, and the non 'address masking' user access checks can all be
thrown away.
That isn't going to happen quickly, but seems a reasonable aim.

Architectures without speculation issues (old ones) can use a C compare.
I think this works for 32bit x86 (without cmov):
mov $-guard_page, %guard_off
add %user_addr, %guard_off
sbb %mask, %mask
and %mask, %guard_off
sub %guard_off, %user_addr
mips-like architectures (no flags) probably require a 'cmp' and 'dec'
to generate the mask value.
(I'm not sure how that compares to any of the ppc asm blocks.)

David

>
> Linus