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From: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
To: Jan Beulich <JBeulich@suse.com>
Cc: Xen-devel <xen-devel@lists.xen.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] xen/x86: Remap text/data/bss with appropriate permissions
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2016 16:15:44 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <56EAD830.8090003@citrix.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <56EADC3A02000078000DDF75@prv-mh.provo.novell.com>

On 17/03/16 15:32, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>>> On 17.03.16 at 15:44, <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com> wrote:
>> On 17/03/16 14:31, Jan Beulich wrote:
>>> Also - do we really want to make this code dependent on
>>> map_pages_to_xen() not intermediately zapping the mappings
>>> being changed?
>> Do you mean "immediately"?
> No.
>
>> As far as I can tell, it is guaranteed to be safe, even when remapping
>> the code section.  Updates to the live pagetables are using atomic
>> writes, and I didn't spot a point which would end up with a transient
>> non-present mapping.
> But we may, at some point and for whatever reason, come to make
> the function zap the mapping (i.e. clear the present bit), flush, and
> only the re-establish the new mapping.

This change is temporary until I can fix the legacy boot issue and
reintroduce the proper 2M functionality.

If someone in the future wants to change the behaviour of
map_pages_to_xen() then we can reconsider.  However, I think it is
unlikely that this will actually happen at all, and if it ever does, I
hope to have already fixed the 2M alignment and deleted this change.

This change is a big security improvement, and absolutely should be
taken, especially as the current implementation of map_pages_to_xen() is
safe.

~Andrew

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  reply	other threads:[~2016-03-17 16:15 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-03-17 12:43 [PATCH] xen/x86: Remap text/data/bss with appropriate permissions Andrew Cooper
2016-03-17 12:43 ` [PATCH] DO NOT APPLY - debug keys for inspecting Xen mappings Andrew Cooper
2016-03-17 14:31 ` [PATCH] xen/x86: Remap text/data/bss with appropriate permissions Jan Beulich
2016-03-17 14:44   ` Andrew Cooper
2016-03-17 15:32     ` Jan Beulich
2016-03-17 16:15       ` Andrew Cooper [this message]
2016-03-18  7:25         ` Jan Beulich
2016-03-18 19:49   ` [PATCH v2] " Andrew Cooper

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