When I wrote the opportunistic SYSRET code, I missed an important difference
between SYSRET and IRET.
Both instructions are capable of setting EFLAGS.TF, but they behave differently
when doing so:
- IRET will not issue a #DB trap after execution when it sets TF.
This is critical -- otherwise you'd never be able to make forward progress when
returning to userspace.
- SYSRET, on the other hand, will trap with #DB immediately after
returning to CPL3, and the next instruction will never execute.
This breaks anything that opportunistically SYSRETs to a user
context with TF set. For example, running this code with TF set
and a SIGTRAP handler loaded never gets past 'post_nop':
extern unsigned char post_nop[];
asm volatile ("pushfq\n\t"
"popq %%r11\n\t"
"nop\n\t"
"post_nop:"
: : "c" (post_nop) : "r11");
In my defense, I can't find this documented in the AMD or Intel manual.
Fix it by using IRET to restore TF.
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Fixes: 21af930680b9 ("x86_64, entry: Use sysret to return to userspace when possible")
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/9472f1ca4c19a38ecda45bba9c91b7168135fcfa.1427923514.git.luto@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
cmpq %r11,(EFLAGS-ARGOFFSET)(%rsp) /* R11 == RFLAGS */
jne opportunistic_sysret_failed
- testq $X86_EFLAGS_RF,%r11 /* sysret can't restore RF */
+ /*
+ * SYSRET can't restore RF. SYSRET can restore TF, but unlike IRET,
+ * restoring TF results in a trap from userspace immediately after
+ * SYSRET. This would cause an infinite loop whenever #DB happens
+ * with register state that satisfies the opportunistic SYSRET
+ * conditions. For example, single-stepping this user code:
+ *
+ * movq $stuck_here,%rcx
+ * pushfq
+ * popq %r11
+ * stuck_here:
+ *
+ * would never get past 'stuck_here'.
+ */
+ testq $(X86_EFLAGS_RF|X86_EFLAGS_TF), %r11
jnz opportunistic_sysret_failed
/* nothing to check for RSP */