Re: [RFC/RFT PATCH 00/19] Link the relocatable x86 kernel as PIE

[Alexander Lobakin <aleksander.lobakin@intel.com>]

From: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
Date: Thu,  8 Jan 2026 09:25:27 +0000

> This series is a follow-up to a series I sent a bit more than a year
> ago, to switch to PIE linking of x86_64 vmlinux, which is a prerequisite
> for further hardening measures, such as fg-kaslr [1], as well as further
> harmonization of the boot protocols between architectures [2].
> 
> The main sticking point is the fact that PIE linking on x86_64 requires
> PIE codegen, and that was shot down before on the basis that
> a) GOTs in fully linked binaries are stupid
> b) the code size increase would be prohibitive
> c) the performance would suffer.
> 
> This series implements PIE codegen without permitting the use of GOT
> slots. The code size increase is between 0.2% (clang) and 0.5% (gcc),
> and I could not identify any performance regressions (using hackbench)
> on various different micro-architectures that I tried it on.
> (Suggestions for other benchmarks/test cases are welcome)
> 
> So now that we have some actual numbers, I would like to try and revisit
> this discussion, and get a conclusion on whether this is really a
> non-starter. Note that only the KASLR kernel would rely on this, and
> disabling CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_BASE will revert to the current situation
> (provided that patch #4 is applied)
> 
> Some minor asm tweaks are needed too (patches #9 - #17), but those all
> seem uncontroversial to me. 
> 
> The first 5 patches are general cleanup, and could be taken into
> consideration independently of the discussion around PIC codegen.
> 
> [1] There have been a few attempts at landing fine grained KASLR for
> x86, but the main problem is that it was tied to the x86 relocation
> format, which deviates from how fully linked relocatable ELF binaries
> are generally constructed (using PIE). Implementing fgkaslr in the ELF
> domain would make it suitable for other architectures too, as well as
> other use cases (bare metal or hosted) where no dynamic linking is
> performed (firmware, hypervisors). In order to implement this properly,
> i.e., with debugging support etc, it needs support from the tooling
> side. (Fine grained KASLR in combination with execute-only code mappings
> makes it extremely difficult for an attacker to subvert the control flow
> in the kernel in a way that can be meaningfully exploited).

In case anybody is interested...
The latest (to my knowledge) experiments with FG-KALSR was my side
project reviving Kristen's old series (and then rewriting it
completely): [0]

I haven't worked on it since then, as I work in an
XDP/netmem/whatever team, i.e. networking, not x86, and free time for
side projects shrunk severely since 2022.

Maybe someone would pick it up again some day, just like I picked up
Kristen's series back then...

[0] https://github.com/alobakin/linux/commits/fgkaslr

Thanks,
Olek