From: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>
To: Dave Martin <Dave.Martin@arm.com>
Cc: Mark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>,
linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, libc-alpha@sourceware.org,
Szabolcs Nagy <szabolcs.nagy@arm.com>,
Jeremy Linton <jeremy.linton@arm.com>,
Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>,
linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1 2/2] arm64: Enable BTI for main executable as well as the interpreter
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2021 19:12:13 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210607181212.GD17957@arm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20210607112536.GI4187@arm.com>
On Mon, Jun 07, 2021 at 12:25:38PM +0100, Dave P Martin wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 03, 2021 at 07:04:31PM +0100, Catalin Marinas via Libc-alpha wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 03, 2021 at 05:51:34PM +0100, Mark Brown wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jun 03, 2021 at 04:40:35PM +0100, Dave Martin wrote:
> > > > Do we know how libcs will detect that they don't need to do the
> > > > mprotect() calls? Do we need a detection mechanism at all?
> > > >
> > > > Ignoring certain errors from mprotect() when ld.so is trying to set
> > > > PROT_BTI on the main executable's code pages is probably a reasonable,
> > > > backwards-compatible compromise here, but it seems a bit wasteful.
> > >
> > > I think the theory was that they would just do the mprotect() calls and
> > > ignore any errors as they currently do, or declare that they depend on a
> > > new enough kernel version I guess (not an option for glibc but might be
> > > for others which didn't do BTI yet).
> >
> > I think we discussed the possibility of an AT_FLAGS bit. Until recently,
> > this field was 0 but it gained a new bit now. If we are to expose this
> > to arch-specific things, it may need some reservations. Anyway, that's
> > an optimisation that can be added subsequently.
>
> I suppose so, but AT_FLAGS doesn't seem appropriate somehow.
>
> I wonder why we suddenly start considering adding a flag to AT_FLAGS
> every few months, when it had sat empty for decades. This may say
> something about the current health of the kernel ABI, but I'm not sure
> exactly what.
>
> I think having mprotect() fail in a predictable way may be preferable
> for now: glibc still only needs to probe with a single call and could
> cache the knowledge after that. Code outside libc / ld.so seems quite
> unlikely to care about this.
I think that's the expected approach for now. If anyone complains about
an extra syscall, we can look into options but I wouldn't rush on doing
something.
> Any ideas on how we would document this behaviour? The kernel and libc
> behaviour are 100% clear: you _are_ allowed to twiddle PROT_BTI on
> executable mappings, and there is no legitimate (or even useful) reason
> to disallow this. It's only systemd deliberately breaking the API that
> causes the behaviour seem by "userspace" to vary.
I don't think we can document all the filters that can be added on top
various syscalls, so I'd leave it undocumented (or part of the systemd
documentation). It was a user space program (systemd) breaking another
user space program (well, anything with a new enough glibc). The kernel
ABI was still valid when /sbin/init started ;).
--
Catalin
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-06-07 18:14 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-05-21 14:46 [PATCH v1 0/2] arm64: Enable BTI for the executable as well as the interpreter Mark Brown
2021-05-21 14:46 ` [PATCH v1 1/2] elf: Allow architectures to parse properties on the main executable Mark Brown
2021-06-03 15:40 ` Dave Martin
2021-06-03 18:52 ` Mark Brown
2021-05-21 14:46 ` [PATCH v1 2/2] arm64: Enable BTI for main executable as well as the interpreter Mark Brown
2021-06-03 15:40 ` Dave Martin
2021-06-03 16:51 ` Mark Brown
2021-06-03 18:04 ` Catalin Marinas
2021-06-07 11:25 ` Dave Martin
2021-06-07 18:12 ` Catalin Marinas [this message]
2021-06-08 11:33 ` Mark Brown
2021-06-08 15:19 ` Dave Martin
2021-06-08 15:42 ` Jeremy Linton
2021-06-10 10:33 ` Dave Martin
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