[PATCH v3] ARM: xip: Use correct symbol for end of ROM marker
Nicolas Pitre
nico at fluxnic.net
Mon Nov 16 12:57:36 PST 2015
On Mon, 16 Nov 2015, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> Nico,
>
> As you originally created the XIP stuff, I hope you can remember
> the details - can you check this patch please?
>
> I'm thinking that we need a new symbol around here:
>
> #ifdef CONFIG_XIP_KERNEL
> __data_loc = ALIGN(4); /* location in binary */
> <=== here
> . = PAGE_OFFSET + TEXT_OFFSET;
> #else
>
> to denote the end of the XIP kernel image which must remain
> accessible after boot. We don't need the data sections because
> they will have been copied to RAM, and we probably don't want to
> keep those exposed (it's potentially useful for attackers.)
The _etext symbol is already used for that purpose.
Now we round it up to the next section mapping which might leave quite a
lot of data content exposed in ROM. But given it is more or less the
same data present in RAM except for those bits that are modified at run
time, I don't see what an attacker would gain from the data in ROM
that cannot already be obtained from kernel RAM. If the section mapping
extends to part of the ROM that is no longer kernel data then maybe this
would expose sensitive data. Is that what you're worried about?
Nicolas
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