[PATCH v12 05/28] riscv: usercfi state for task and save/restore of CSR_SSP on trap entry/exit

Deepak Gupta debug at rivosinc.com
Wed Apr 23 17:00:29 PDT 2025


On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 01:04:39PM +0200, Radim Krčmář wrote:
>2025-03-14T14:39:24-07:00, Deepak Gupta <debug at rivosinc.com>:
>> diff --git a/arch/riscv/include/asm/thread_info.h b/arch/riscv/include/asm/thread_info.h
>> @@ -62,6 +62,9 @@ struct thread_info {
>>  	long			user_sp;	/* User stack pointer */
>>  	int			cpu;
>>  	unsigned long		syscall_work;	/* SYSCALL_WORK_ flags */
>> +#ifdef CONFIG_RISCV_USER_CFI
>> +	struct cfi_status	user_cfi_state;
>> +#endif
>
>I don't think it makes sense to put all the data in thread_info.
>kernel_ssp and user_ssp is more than enough and the rest can comfortably
>live elsewhere in task_struct.
>
>thread_info is supposed to be as small as possible -- just spanning
>multiple cache-lines could be noticeable.

I can change it to only include only `user_ssp`, base and size.

But before we go there, see below:

$ pahole -C thread_info kbuild/vmlinux
struct thread_info {
         long unsigned int          flags;                /*     0     8 */
         int                        preempt_count;        /*     8     4 */

         /* XXX 4 bytes hole, try to pack */

         long int                   kernel_sp;            /*    16     8 */
         long int                   user_sp;              /*    24     8 */
         int                        cpu;                  /*    32     4 */

         /* XXX 4 bytes hole, try to pack */

         long unsigned int          syscall_work;         /*    40     8 */
         struct cfi_status          user_cfi_state;       /*    48    32 */
         /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) was 16 bytes ago --- */
         long unsigned int          a0;                   /*    80     8 */
         long unsigned int          a1;                   /*    88     8 */
         long unsigned int          a2;                   /*    96     8 */

         /* size: 104, cachelines: 2, members: 10 */
         /* sum members: 96, holes: 2, sum holes: 8 */
         /* last cacheline: 40 bytes */
};

If we were to remove entire `cfi_status`, it would still be 72 bytes (88 bytes
if shadow call stack were enabled) and already spans across two cachelines. I
did see the comment above that it should fit inside a cacheline. Although I
assumed its stale comment given that it already spans across cacheline and I
didn't see any special mention in commit messages of changes which grew this
structure above one cacheline. So I assumed this was a stale comment.

On the other hand, whenever enable/lock bits are checked, there is a high
likelyhood that user_ssp and other fields are going to be accessed and
thus it actually might be helpful to have it all in one cacheline during
runtime.

So I am not sure if its helpful sticking to the comment which already is stale.

>
>> diff --git a/arch/riscv/kernel/entry.S b/arch/riscv/kernel/entry.S
>> @@ -147,6 +147,20 @@ SYM_CODE_START(handle_exception)
>>
>>  	REG_L s0, TASK_TI_USER_SP(tp)
>>  	csrrc s1, CSR_STATUS, t0
>> +	/*
>> +	 * If previous mode was U, capture shadow stack pointer and save it away
>> +	 * Zero CSR_SSP at the same time for sanitization.
>> +	 */
>> +	ALTERNATIVE("nop; nop; nop; nop",
>> +				__stringify(			\
>> +				andi s2, s1, SR_SPP;	\
>> +				bnez s2, skip_ssp_save;	\
>> +				csrrw s2, CSR_SSP, x0;	\
>> +				REG_S s2, TASK_TI_USER_SSP(tp); \
>> +				skip_ssp_save:),
>> +				0,
>> +				RISCV_ISA_EXT_ZICFISS,
>> +				CONFIG_RISCV_USER_CFI)
>
>(I'd prefer this closer to the user_sp and kernel_sp swap, it's breaking
> the flow here.  We also already know if we've returned from userspace
> or not even without SR_SPP, but reusing the information might tangle
> the logic.)
>
>>  	csrr s2, CSR_EPC
>>  	csrr s3, CSR_TVAL
>>  	csrr s4, CSR_CAUSE
>> @@ -236,6 +250,18 @@ SYM_CODE_START_NOALIGN(ret_from_exception)
>>  	csrw CSR_SCRATCH, tp
>> +
>> +	/*
>> +	 * Going back to U mode, restore shadow stack pointer
>> +	 */
>
>Are we?  I think we can be just as well returning back to kernel-space.
>Similar to how we can enter the exception handler from kernel-space.
>
>> +	ALTERNATIVE("nop; nop",
>> +				__stringify(					\
>> +				REG_L s3, TASK_TI_USER_SSP(tp); \
>> +				csrw CSR_SSP, s3),
>> +				0,
>> +				RISCV_ISA_EXT_ZICFISS,
>> +				CONFIG_RISCV_USER_CFI)
>> +
>
>Thanks.



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