[PATCH 1/2] arm64: poe: Handle spurious Overlay faults
Kevin Brodsky
kevin.brodsky at arm.com
Thu Jun 19 09:00:41 PDT 2025
We do not currently issue an ISB after updating POR_EL0 when
context-switching it, for instance. The rationale is that if the old
value of POR_EL0 is more restrictive and causes a fault during
uaccess, the access will be retried [1]. In other words, we are
trading an ISB on every context-switching for the (unlikely)
possibility of a spurious fault. We may also miss faults if the new
value of POR_EL0 is more restrictive, but that's considered
acceptable.
However, as things stand, a spurious Overlay fault results in
uaccess failing right away since it causes fault_from_pkey() to
return true. If an Overlay fault is reported, we therefore need to
double check POR_EL0 against vma_pkey(vma) - this is what
arch_vma_access_permitted() already does.
As it turns out, we already perform that explicit check if no
Overlay fault is reported, and we need to keep that check (see
comment added in fault_from_pkey()). Net result: the Overlay ISS2
bit isn't of much help to decide whether a pkey fault occurred.
Remove the check for the Overlay bit from fault_from_pkey() and
add a comment to try and explain the situation. While at it, also
add a comment to permission_overlay_switch() in case anyone gets
surprised by the lack of ISB.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/ZtYNGBrcE-j35fpw@arm.com/
Fixes: 160a8e13de6c ("arm64: context switch POR_EL0 register")
Signed-off-by: Kevin Brodsky <kevin.brodsky at arm.com>
---
arch/arm64/kernel/process.c | 5 +++++
arch/arm64/mm/fault.c | 30 +++++++++++++++++++++---------
2 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c b/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c
index a5ca15daeb8a..be1717eaf23b 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/process.c
@@ -671,6 +671,11 @@ static void permission_overlay_switch(struct task_struct *next)
current->thread.por_el0 = read_sysreg_s(SYS_POR_EL0);
if (current->thread.por_el0 != next->thread.por_el0) {
write_sysreg_s(next->thread.por_el0, SYS_POR_EL0);
+ /*
+ * No ISB required as we can tolerate spurious Overlay faults -
+ * the fault handler will check again based on the new value
+ * of POR_EL0.
+ */
}
}
diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c b/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
index ec0a337891dd..11eb8d1adc84 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
@@ -487,17 +487,29 @@ static void do_bad_area(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr,
}
}
-static bool fault_from_pkey(unsigned long esr, struct vm_area_struct *vma,
- unsigned int mm_flags)
+static bool fault_from_pkey(struct vm_area_struct *vma, unsigned int mm_flags)
{
- unsigned long iss2 = ESR_ELx_ISS2(esr);
-
if (!system_supports_poe())
return false;
- if (esr_fsc_is_permission_fault(esr) && (iss2 & ESR_ELx_Overlay))
- return true;
-
+ /*
+ * We do not check whether an Overlay fault has occurred because we
+ * cannot make a decision based solely on its value:
+ *
+ * - If Overlay is set, a fault did occur due to POE, but it may be
+ * spurious in those cases where we update POR_EL0 without ISB (e.g.
+ * on context-switch). We would then need to manually check POR_EL0
+ * against vma_pkey(vma), which is exactly what
+ * arch_vma_access_permitted() does.
+ *
+ * - If Overlay is not set, we may still need to report a pkey fault.
+ * This is the case if an access was made within a mapping but with no
+ * page mapped, and POR_EL0 forbids the access (according to
+ * vma_pkey()). Such access will result in a SIGSEGV regardless
+ * because core code checks arch_vma_access_permitted(), but in order
+ * to report the correct error code - SEGV_PKUERR - we must handle
+ * that case here.
+ */
return !arch_vma_access_permitted(vma,
mm_flags & FAULT_FLAG_WRITE,
mm_flags & FAULT_FLAG_INSTRUCTION,
@@ -635,7 +647,7 @@ static int __kprobes do_page_fault(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr,
goto bad_area;
}
- if (fault_from_pkey(esr, vma, mm_flags)) {
+ if (fault_from_pkey(vma, mm_flags)) {
pkey = vma_pkey(vma);
vma_end_read(vma);
fault = 0;
@@ -679,7 +691,7 @@ static int __kprobes do_page_fault(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr,
goto bad_area;
}
- if (fault_from_pkey(esr, vma, mm_flags)) {
+ if (fault_from_pkey(vma, mm_flags)) {
pkey = vma_pkey(vma);
mmap_read_unlock(mm);
fault = 0;
--
2.47.0
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