On context switch from a shallow call stack to a deeper one, as the CPU
does 'ret' up the deeper side it may encounter RSB entries (predictions for
where the 'ret' goes to) which were populated in userspace.
This is problematic if neither SMEP nor KPTI (the latter of which marks
userspace pages as NX for the kernel) are active, as malicious code in
userspace may then be executed speculatively.
Overwrite the CPU's return prediction stack with calls which are predicted
to return to an infinite loop, to "capture" speculation if this
happens. This is required both for retpoline, and also in conjunction with
IBRS for !SMEP && !KPTI.
On Skylake+ the problem is slightly different, and an *underflow* of the
RSB may cause errant branch predictions to occur. So there it's not so much
overwrite, as *filling* the RSB to attempt to prevent it getting
empty. This is only a partial solution for Skylake+ since there are many
other conditions which may result in the RSB becoming empty. The full
solution on Skylake+ is to use IBRS, which will prevent the problem even
when the RSB becomes empty. With IBRS, the RSB-stuffing will not be
required on context switch.
[ tglx: Added missing vendor check and slighty massaged comments and
changelog ]
Signed-off-by: David Woodhouse <dwmw@amazon.co.uk>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Acked-by: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@linux.intel.com>
Cc: gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
Cc: thomas.lendacky@amd.com
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@google.com>
Cc: Tim Chen <tim.c.chen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Paul Turner <pjt@google.com>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1515779365-9032-1-git-send-email-dwmw@amazon.co.uk
c995efd5a7