Re: [RFC/RFT PATCH 0/6] Improve get_random_u8() for use in randomize kstack

Ryan Roberts
2025-11-27T15:57:03Z

On 27/11/2025 15:03, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Nov 2025 at 15:18, Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 27/11/2025 12:28, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
>>> On Thu, 27 Nov 2025 at 13:12, Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 27/11/2025 09:22, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
>>>>> From: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
>>>>>
>>>>> Ryan reports that get_random_u16() is dominant in the performance
>>>>> profiling of syscall entry when kstack randomization is enabled [0].
>>>>>
>>>>> This is the reason many architectures rely on a counter instead, and
>>>>> that, in turn, is the reason for the convoluted way the (pseudo-)entropy
>>>>> is gathered and recorded in a per-CPU variable.
>>>>>
>>>>> Let's try to make the get_random_uXX() fast path faster, and switch to
>>>>> get_random_u8() so that we'll hit the slow path 2x less often. Then,
>>>>> wire it up in the syscall entry path, replacing the per-CPU variable,
>>>>> making the logic at syscall exit redundant.
>>>>
>>>> I ran the same set of syscall benchmarks for this series as I've done for my
>>>> series.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>>
>>>> The baseline is v6.18-rc5 with stack randomization turned *off*. So I'm showing
>>>> performance cost of turning it on without any changes to the implementation,
>>>> then the reduced performance cost of turning it on with my changes applied, and
>>>> finally cost of turning it on with Ard's changes applied:
>>>>
>>>> arm64 (AWS Graviton3):
>>>> +-----------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
>>>> | Benchmark | Result Class | v6.18-rc5 | per-task-prng | fast-get-random |
>>>> | | | rndstack-on | | |
>>>> +=================+==============+=============+===============+=================+
>>>> | syscall/getpid | mean (ns) | (R) 15.62% | (R) 3.43% | (R) 11.93% |
>>>> | | p99 (ns) | (R) 155.01% | (R) 3.20% | (R) 11.00% |
>>>> | | p99.9 (ns) | (R) 156.71% | (R) 2.93% | (R) 11.39% |
>>>> +-----------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
>>>> | syscall/getppid | mean (ns) | (R) 14.09% | (R) 2.12% | (R) 10.44% |
>>>> | | p99 (ns) | (R) 152.81% | 1.55% | (R) 9.94% |
>>>> | | p99.9 (ns) | (R) 153.67% | 1.77% | (R) 9.83% |
>>>> +-----------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
>>>> | syscall/invalid | mean (ns) | (R) 13.89% | (R) 3.32% | (R) 10.39% |
>>>> | | p99 (ns) | (R) 165.82% | (R) 3.51% | (R) 10.72% |
>>>> | | p99.9 (ns) | (R) 168.83% | (R) 3.77% | (R) 11.03% |
>>>> +-----------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------+
>>>>
>>>
>>> What does the (R) mean?
>>>
>>>> So this fixes the tail problem. I guess get_random_u8() only takes the slow path
>>>> every 768 calls, whereas get_random_u16() took it every 384 calls. I'm not sure
>>>> that fully explains it though.
>>>>
>>>> But it's still a 10% cost on average.
>>>>
>>>> Personally I think 10% syscall cost is too much to pay for 6 bits of stack
>>>> randomisation. 3% is better, but still higher than we would all prefer, I'm sure.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Interesting!
>>>
>>> So the only thing that get_random_u8() does that could explain the
>>> delta is calling into the scheduler on preempt_enable(), given that it
>>> does very little beyond that.
>>>
>>> Would you mind repeating this experiment after changing the
>>> put_cpu_var() to preempt_enable_no_resched(), to test this theory?
>>
>> This has no impact on performance.
>>
>
> Thanks. But this is really rather surprising: what else could be
> taking up that time, given that on the fast path, there are only some
> loads and stores to the buffer, and a cmpxchg64_local(). Could it be
> the latter that is causing so much latency? I suppose the local
> cmpxchg() semantics don't really exist on arm64, and this uses the
> exact same LSE instruction that would be used for an ordinary
> cmpxchg(), unlike on x86 where it appears to omit the LOCK prefix.
>
> In any case, there is no debate that your code is faster on arm64.

The results I have for x86 show it's faster than the rdtsc too, although that's
also somewhat surprising. I'll run your series on x86 to get the equivalent data.

> I
> also think that using prandom for this purpose is perfectly fine, even
> without reseeding: with a 2^113 period and only 6 observable bits per
> 32 bit sample, predicting the next value reliably is maybe not
> impossible, but hardly worth the extensive effort, given that we're
> not generating cryptographic keys here.
>
> So the question is really whether we want to dedicate 16 bytes per
> task for this. I wouldn't mind personally, but it is something our
> internal QA engineers tend to obsess over.

Yeah that's a good point. Is this something we could potentially keep at the
start of the kstack? Is there any precident for keeping state there at the
moment? For arm64, I know there is a general feeling that 16K for the stack more
than enough (but we are stuck with it because 8K isn't quite enough). So it
would be "for free". I guess it would be tricky to do this in an arch-agnostic
way though...

Thanks,
Ryan