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authorThomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>2018-04-29 15:20:11 +0200
committerThomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>2018-05-03 13:55:50 +0200
commitb617cfc858161140d69cc0b5cc211996b557a1c7 (patch)
tree64803e15cb79a0d535504ea9b873b7846f614c58 /Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst
parentx86/speculation: Create spec-ctrl.h to avoid include hell (diff)
downloadlinux-b617cfc858161140d69cc0b5cc211996b557a1c7.tar.xz
linux-b617cfc858161140d69cc0b5cc211996b557a1c7.zip
prctl: Add speculation control prctls
Add two new prctls to control aspects of speculation related vulnerabilites and their mitigations to provide finer grained control over performance impacting mitigations. PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL returns the state of the speculation misfeature which is selected with arg2 of prctl(2). The return value uses bit 0-2 with the following meaning: Bit Define Description 0 PR_SPEC_PRCTL Mitigation can be controlled per task by PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL 1 PR_SPEC_ENABLE The speculation feature is enabled, mitigation is disabled 2 PR_SPEC_DISABLE The speculation feature is disabled, mitigation is enabled If all bits are 0 the CPU is not affected by the speculation misfeature. If PR_SPEC_PRCTL is set, then the per task control of the mitigation is available. If not set, prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL) for the speculation misfeature will fail. PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL allows to control the speculation misfeature, which is selected by arg2 of prctl(2) per task. arg3 is used to hand in the control value, i.e. either PR_SPEC_ENABLE or PR_SPEC_DISABLE. The common return values are: EINVAL prctl is not implemented by the architecture or the unused prctl() arguments are not 0 ENODEV arg2 is selecting a not supported speculation misfeature PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL has these additional return values: ERANGE arg3 is incorrect, i.e. it's not either PR_SPEC_ENABLE or PR_SPEC_DISABLE ENXIO prctl control of the selected speculation misfeature is disabled The first supported controlable speculation misfeature is PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS. Add the define so this can be shared between architectures. Based on an initial patch from Tim Chen and mostly rewritten. Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Reviewed-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> Reviewed-by: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
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+===================
+Speculation Control
+===================
+
+Quite some CPUs have speculation related misfeatures which are in fact
+vulnerabilites causing data leaks in various forms even accross privilege
+domains.
+
+The kernel provides mitigation for such vulnerabilities in various
+forms. Some of these mitigations are compile time configurable and some on
+the kernel command line.
+
+There is also a class of mitigations which are very expensive, but they can
+be restricted to a certain set of processes or tasks in controlled
+environments. The mechanism to control these mitigations is via
+:manpage:`prctl(2)`.
+
+There are two prctl options which are related to this:
+
+ * PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL
+
+ * PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL
+
+PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL
+-----------------------
+
+PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL returns the state of the speculation misfeature
+which is selected with arg2 of prctl(2). The return value uses bits 0-2 with
+the following meaning:
+
+==== ================ ===================================================
+Bit Define Description
+==== ================ ===================================================
+0 PR_SPEC_PRCTL Mitigation can be controlled per task by
+ PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL
+1 PR_SPEC_ENABLE The speculation feature is enabled, mitigation is
+ disabled
+2 PR_SPEC_DISABLE The speculation feature is disabled, mitigation is
+ enabled
+==== ================ ===================================================
+
+If all bits are 0 the CPU is not affected by the speculation misfeature.
+
+If PR_SPEC_PRCTL is set, then the per task control of the mitigation is
+available. If not set, prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL) for the speculation
+misfeature will fail.
+
+PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL
+-----------------------
+PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL allows to control the speculation misfeature, which
+is selected by arg2 of :manpage:`prctl(2)` per task. arg3 is used to hand
+in the control value, i.e. either PR_SPEC_ENABLE or PR_SPEC_DISABLE.
+
+Common error codes
+------------------
+======= =================================================================
+Value Meaning
+======= =================================================================
+EINVAL The prctl is not implemented by the architecture or unused
+ prctl(2) arguments are not 0
+
+ENODEV arg2 is selecting a not supported speculation misfeature
+======= =================================================================
+
+PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL error codes
+-----------------------------------
+======= =================================================================
+Value Meaning
+======= =================================================================
+0 Success
+
+ERANGE arg3 is incorrect, i.e. it's neither PR_SPEC_ENABLE nor
+ PR_SPEC_DISABLE
+
+ENXIO Control of the selected speculation misfeature is not possible.
+ See PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL.
+======= =================================================================
+
+Speculation misfeature controls
+-------------------------------
+- PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS: Speculative Store Bypass
+
+ Invocations:
+ * prctl(PR_GET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, 0, 0, 0);
+ * prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, PR_SPEC_ENABLE, 0, 0);
+ * prctl(PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL, PR_SPEC_STORE_BYPASS, PR_SPEC_DISABLE, 0, 0);