> On 19 Aug 2022, at 4:52 pm, Christophe Leroy <christophe.le...@csgroup.eu> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Le 19/08/2022 à 05:38, Rohan McLure a écrit :
>> Clear user state in gprs (assign to zero) to reduce the influence of user
>> registers on speculation within kernel syscall handlers. Clears occur
>> at the very beginning of the sc and scv 0 interrupt handlers, with
>> restores occurring following the execution of the syscall handler.
>> 
>> Signed-off-by: Rohan McLure <rmcl...@linux.ibm.com>
>> ---
>> V1 -> V2: Update summary
>> V2 -> V3: Remove erroneous summary paragraph on syscall_exit_prepare
>> ---
>>  arch/powerpc/kernel/interrupt_64.S | 22 ++++++++++++++++++----
>>  1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
>> 
>> diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/interrupt_64.S 
>> b/arch/powerpc/kernel/interrupt_64.S
>> index 0178aeba3820..d9625113c7a5 100644
>> --- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/interrupt_64.S
>> +++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/interrupt_64.S
>> @@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ _ASM_NOKPROBE_SYMBOL(system_call_vectored_\name)
>>      ld      r2,PACATOC(r13)
>>      mfcr    r12
>>      li      r11,0
>> -    /* Can we avoid saving r3-r8 in common case? */
>> +    /* Save syscall parameters in r3-r8 */
>>      std     r3,GPR3(r1)
>>      std     r4,GPR4(r1)
>>      std     r5,GPR5(r1)
>> @@ -109,6 +109,13 @@ END_FTR_SECTION_IFSET(CPU_FTR_HAS_PPR)
>>       * but this is the best we can do.
>>       */
>> 
>> +    /*
>> +     * Zero user registers to prevent influencing speculative execution
>> +     * state of kernel code.
>> +     */
>> +    NULLIFY_GPRS(5, 12)
> 
> Macro name has changed.
> 
>> +    NULLIFY_NVGPRS()
> 
> Why clearing non volatile GPRs ? They are supposed to be callee saved so 
> I can't see how they could be used for speculation. Do you have any 
> exemple ?
> 
>> +
>>      /* Calling convention has r3 = orig r0, r4 = regs */
>>      mr      r3,r0
>>      bl      system_call_exception
>> @@ -139,6 +146,7 @@ BEGIN_FTR_SECTION
>>      HMT_MEDIUM_LOW
>>  END_FTR_SECTION_IFSET(CPU_FTR_HAS_PPR)
>> 
>> +    REST_NVGPRS(r1)
> 
> 
> 
>>      cmpdi   r3,0
>>      bne     .Lsyscall_vectored_\name\()_restore_regs
>> 
>> @@ -181,7 +189,6 @@ END_FTR_SECTION_IFSET(CPU_FTR_HAS_PPR)
>>      ld      r4,_LINK(r1)
>>      ld      r5,_XER(r1)
>> 
>> -    REST_NVGPRS(r1)
>>      ld      r0,GPR0(r1)
>>      mtcr    r2
>>      mtctr   r3
>> @@ -249,7 +256,7 @@ END_BTB_FLUSH_SECTION
>>      ld      r2,PACATOC(r13)
>>      mfcr    r12
>>      li      r11,0
>> -    /* Can we avoid saving r3-r8 in common case? */
>> +    /* Save syscall parameters in r3-r8 */
>>      std     r3,GPR3(r1)
>>      std     r4,GPR4(r1)
>>      std     r5,GPR5(r1)
>> @@ -300,6 +307,13 @@ END_BTB_FLUSH_SECTION
>>      wrteei  1
>>  #endif
>> 
>> +    /*
>> +     * Zero user registers to prevent influencing speculative execution
>> +     * state of kernel code.
>> +     */
>> +    NULLIFY_GPRS(5, 12)
>> +    NULLIFY_NVGPRS()
>> +
> 
> Name has changed.
> 
>>      /* Calling convention has r3 = orig r0, r4 = regs */
>>      mr      r3,r0
>>      bl      system_call_exception
>> @@ -342,6 +356,7 @@ BEGIN_FTR_SECTION
>>      stdcx.  r0,0,r1                 /* to clear the reservation */
>>  END_FTR_SECTION_IFCLR(CPU_FTR_STCX_CHECKS_ADDRESS)
>> 
>> +    REST_NVGPRS(r1)
> 
> Same question.
> 
>>      cmpdi   r3,0
>>      bne     .Lsyscall_restore_regs
>>      /* Zero volatile regs that may contain sensitive kernel data */
>> @@ -377,7 +392,6 @@ END_FTR_SECTION_IFSET(CPU_FTR_HAS_PPR)
>>  .Lsyscall_restore_regs:
>>      ld      r3,_CTR(r1)
>>      ld      r4,_XER(r1)
>> -    REST_NVGPRS(r1)
>>      mtctr   r3
>>      mtspr   SPRN_XER,r4
>>      ld      r0,GPR0(r1)


> Why clearing non volatile GPRs ? They are supposed to be callee saved so 
> I can't see how they could be used for speculation. Do you have any 
> exemple ?

Even though non-volatiles will be callee-saved subject to ABI in the syscall 
handler prologue, it is still conceivable that a syscall handler will leave a 
register uninitialised on one branch outcome, assigning that register in the 
other.

On speculative processors, there remains the possibility for untaken branches 
to be executed microarchitecturally (by mistraining the branch predictor or 
otherwise),
whereby the microarchitectural effects of the execution present a side-channel.

Such a hardening measure removes the burden for developers to prove that 
toolchains
will never emit code with these properties in code reachable via a syscall. For 
what
it’s worth, precedent already exists in arm64 and x86.

Links:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20180702110415.10465-13-mark.rutl...@arm.com/
 
<https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20180702110415.10465-13-mark.rutl...@arm.com/>
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20180405095307.3730-8-li...@dominikbrodowski.net/ 
<https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20180405095307.3730-8-li...@dominikbrodowski.net/>

> What is the link between this change and the description in the commit 
> message ?

I’ll include a detail on why we must restore nvgprs in both cases in the commit 
message.
Thanks for pointing that out.

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