[PATCH 6.0 0110/1073] x86/split_lock: Add sysctl to control the misery mode

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2022-12-28T15:07:20Z

From: Guilherme G. Piccoli <gpiccoli@igalia.com>

[ Upstream commit 727209376f4998bc84db1d5d8af15afea846a92b ]

Commit b041b525dab9 ("x86/split_lock: Make life miserable for split lockers")
changed the way the split lock detector works when in "warn" mode;
basically, it not only shows the warn message, but also intentionally
introduces a slowdown through sleeping plus serialization mechanism
on such task. Based on discussions in [0], seems the warning alone
wasn't enough motivation for userspace developers to fix their
applications.

This slowdown is enough to totally break some proprietary (aka.
unfixable) userspace[1].

Happens that originally the proposal in [0] was to add a new mode
which would warns + slowdown the "split locking" task, keeping the
old warn mode untouched. In the end, that idea was discarded and
the regular/default "warn" mode now slows down the applications. This
is quite aggressive with regards proprietary/legacy programs that
basically are unable to properly run in kernel with this change.
While it is understandable that a malicious application could DoS
by split locking, it seems unacceptable to regress old/proprietary
userspace programs through a default configuration that previously
worked. An example of such breakage was reported in [1].

Add a sysctl to allow controlling the "misery mode" behavior, as per
Thomas suggestion on [2]. This way, users running legacy and/or
proprietary software are allowed to still execute them with a decent
performance while still observing the warning messages on kernel log.

[0] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220217012721.9694-1-tony.luck@intel.com/
[1] https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/issues/2938
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/87pmf4bter.ffs@tglx/

[ dhansen: minor changelog tweaks, including clarifying the actual
problem ]

Fixes: b041b525dab9 ("x86/split_lock: Make life miserable for split lockers")
Suggested-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Guilherme G. Piccoli <gpiccoli@igalia.com>
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
Tested-by: Andre Almeida <andrealmeid@igalia.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20221024200254.635256-1-gpiccoli%40igalia.com
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
---
Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst | 23 ++++++++
arch/x86/kernel/cpu/intel.c | 63 +++++++++++++++++----
2 files changed, 76 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst
index ee6572b1edad..66d1b23ca64f 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/kernel.rst
@@ -1298,6 +1298,29 @@ watchdog work to be queued by the watchdog timer function, otherwise the NMI
watchdog — if enabled — can detect a hard lockup condition.

+split_lock_mitigate (x86 only)
+==============================
+
+On x86, each "split lock" imposes a system-wide performance penalty. On larger
+systems, large numbers of split locks from unprivileged users can result in
+denials of service to well-behaved and potentially more important users.
+
+The kernel mitigates these bad users by detecting split locks and imposing
+penalties: forcing them to wait and only allowing one core to execute split
+locks at a time.
+
+These mitigations can make those bad applications unbearably slow. Setting
+split_lock_mitigate=0 may restore some application performance, but will also
+increase system exposure to denial of service attacks from split lock users.
+
+= ===================================================================
+0 Disable the mitigation mode - just warns the split lock on kernel log
+ and exposes the system to denials of service from the split lockers.
+1 Enable the mitigation mode (this is the default) - penalizes the split
+ lockers with intentional performance degradation.
+= ===================================================================
+
+
stack_erasing
=============

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/intel.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/intel.c
index 2d7ea5480ec3..427899650483 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/intel.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/intel.c
@@ -1034,8 +1034,32 @@ static const struct {

static struct ratelimit_state bld_ratelimit;

+static unsigned int sysctl_sld_mitigate = 1;
static DEFINE_SEMAPHORE(buslock_sem);

+#ifdef CONFIG_PROC_SYSCTL
+static struct ctl_table sld_sysctls[] = {
+ {
+ .procname = "split_lock_mitigate",
+ .data = &sysctl_sld_mitigate,
+ .maxlen = sizeof(unsigned int),
+ .mode = 0644,
+ .proc_handler = proc_douintvec_minmax,
+ .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO,
+ .extra2 = SYSCTL_ONE,
+ },
+ {}
+};
+
+static int __init sld_mitigate_sysctl_init(void)
+{
+ register_sysctl_init("kernel", sld_sysctls);
+ return 0;
+}
+
+late_initcall(sld_mitigate_sysctl_init);
+#endif
+
static inline bool match_option(const char *arg, int arglen, const char *opt)
{
int len = strlen(opt), ratelimit;
@@ -1146,12 +1170,20 @@ static void split_lock_init(void)
split_lock_verify_msr(sld_state != sld_off);
}

-static void __split_lock_reenable(struct work_struct *work)
+static void __split_lock_reenable_unlock(struct work_struct *work)
{
sld_update_msr(true);
up(&buslock_sem);
}

+static DECLARE_DELAYED_WORK(sl_reenable_unlock, __split_lock_reenable_unlock);
+
+static void __split_lock_reenable(struct work_struct *work)
+{
+ sld_update_msr(true);
+}
+static DECLARE_DELAYED_WORK(sl_reenable, __split_lock_reenable);
+
/*
* If a CPU goes offline with pending delayed work to re-enable split lock
* detection then the delayed work will be executed on some other CPU. That
@@ -1169,10 +1201,9 @@ static int splitlock_cpu_offline(unsigned int cpu)
return 0;
}

-static DECLARE_DELAYED_WORK(split_lock_reenable, __split_lock_reenable);
-
static void split_lock_warn(unsigned long ip)
{
+ struct delayed_work *work;
int cpu;

if (!current->reported_split_lock)
@@ -1180,14 +1211,26 @@ static void split_lock_warn(unsigned long ip)
current->comm, current->pid, ip);
current->reported_split_lock = 1;

- /* misery factor #1, sleep 10ms before trying to execute split lock */
- if (msleep_interruptible(10) > 0)
- return;
- /* Misery factor #2, only allow one buslocked disabled core at a time */
- if (down_interruptible(&buslock_sem) == -EINTR)
- return;
+ if (sysctl_sld_mitigate) {
+ /*
+ * misery factor #1:
+ * sleep 10ms before trying to execute split lock.
+ */
+ if (msleep_interruptible(10) > 0)
+ return;
+ /*
+ * Misery factor #2:
+ * only allow one buslocked disabled core at a time.
+ */
+ if (down_interruptible(&buslock_sem) == -EINTR)
+ return;
+ work = &sl_reenable_unlock;
+ } else {
+ work = &sl_reenable;
+ }
+
cpu = get_cpu();
- schedule_delayed_work_on(cpu, &split_lock_reenable, 2);
+ schedule_delayed_work_on(cpu, work, 2);

/* Disable split lock detection on this CPU to make progress */
sld_update_msr(false);
--
2.35.1