Re: [RFC PATCH v3 12/24] x86/mm: Modify ptep_set_wrprotect and pmdp_set_wrprotect for _PAGE_DIRTY_SW

[Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>]

On Fri, 2018-08-31 at 18:29 +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 08:58:39AM -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
> > 
> > On 08/31/2018 08:48 AM, Yu-cheng Yu wrote:
> > > 
> > > To trigger a race in ptep_set_wrprotect(), we need to fork from one of
> > > three pthread siblings.
> > > 
> > > Or do we measure only how much this affects fork?
> > > If there is no racing, the effect should be minimal.
> > We don't need a race.
> > 
> > I think the cmpxchg will be slower, even without a race, than the code
> > that was there before.  The cmpxchg is a simple, straightforward
> > solution, but we're putting it in place of a plain memory write, which
> > is suboptimal.
> Note quite, the clear_bit() is LOCK prefixed.

With the updated ptep_set_wrprotect() below, I did MADV_WILLNEED to a shadow
stack of 8 MB, then 10,000 fork()'s, but could not prove it is more or less
efficient than the other.  So can we say this is probably fine in terms of
efficiency?

Yu-cheng




--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable.h
@@ -1203,7 +1203,36 @@ static inline pte_t ptep_get_and_clear_full(struct
mm_struct *mm,
 static inline void ptep_set_wrprotect(struct mm_struct *mm,
 				      unsigned long addr, pte_t *ptep)
 {
+#ifdef CONFIG_X86_INTEL_SHADOW_STACK_USER
+	pte_t new_pte, pte = READ_ONCE(*ptep);
+
+	/*
+	 * Some processors can start a write, but end up
+	 * seeing a read-only PTE by the time they get
+	 * to the Dirty bit.  In this case, they will
+	 * set the Dirty bit, leaving a read-only, Dirty
+	 * PTE which looks like a Shadow Stack PTE.
+	 *
+	 * However, this behavior has been improved and
+	 * will not occur on processors supporting
+	 * Shadow Stacks.  Without this guarantee, a
+	 * transition to a non-present PTE and flush the
+	 * TLB would be needed.
+	 *
+	 * When changing a writable PTE to read-only and
+	 * if the PTE has _PAGE_DIRTY_HW set, we move
+	 * that bit to _PAGE_DIRTY_SW so that the PTE is
+	 * not a valid Shadow Stack PTE.
+	 */
+	do {
+		new_pte = pte_wrprotect(pte);
+		new_pte.pte |= (new_pte.pte & _PAGE_DIRTY_HW) >>
+				_PAGE_BIT_DIRTY_HW << _PAGE_BIT_DIRTY_SW;
+		new_pte.pte &= ~_PAGE_DIRTY_HW;
+	} while (!try_cmpxchg(ptep, &pte, new_pte));
+#else
 	clear_bit(_PAGE_BIT_RW, (unsigned long *)&ptep->pte);
+#endif
 }