mds_user_clear.
The mitigation is invoked in prepare_exit_to_usermode() which covers
- most of the kernel to user space transitions. There are a few exceptions
- which are not invoking prepare_exit_to_usermode() on return to user
- space. These exceptions use the paranoid exit code.
-
- - Non Maskable Interrupt (NMI):
-
- Access to sensible data like keys, credentials in the NMI context is
- mostly theoretical: The CPU can do prefetching or execute a
- misspeculated code path and thereby fetching data which might end up
- leaking through a buffer.
-
- But for mounting other attacks the kernel stack address of the task is
- already valuable information. So in full mitigation mode, the NMI is
- mitigated on the return from do_nmi() to provide almost complete
- coverage.
-
- - Machine Check Exception (#MC):
-
- Another corner case is a #MC which hits between the CPU buffer clear
- invocation and the actual return to user. As this still is in kernel
- space it takes the paranoid exit path which does not clear the CPU
- buffers. So the #MC handler repopulates the buffers to some
- extent. Machine checks are not reliably controllable and the window is
- extremly small so mitigation would just tick a checkbox that this
- theoretical corner case is covered. To keep the amount of special
- cases small, ignore #MC.
-
- - Debug Exception (#DB):
-
- This takes the paranoid exit path only when the INT1 breakpoint is in
- kernel space. #DB on a user space address takes the regular exit path,
- so no extra mitigation required.
+ all but one of the kernel to user space transitions. The exception
+ is when we return from a Non Maskable Interrupt (NMI), which is
+ handled directly in do_nmi().
+
+ (The reason that NMI is special is that prepare_exit_to_usermode() can
+ enable IRQs. In NMI context, NMIs are blocked, and we don't want to
+ enable IRQs with NMIs blocked.)
2. C-State transition
projects / linux-2.6-microblaze.git / blobdiff