tree 8bbfb8d6375b48edfa8e1d99a230ca9f56df200b
parent 878ba03932d757ce4e954db4defec74a0de0435b
author Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com> 1455310960 -0800
committer Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> 1455821193 +0100

mm/core, x86/mm/pkeys: Add execute-only protection keys support

Protection keys provide new page-based protection in hardware.
But, they have an interesting attribute: they only affect data
accesses and never affect instruction fetches.  That means that
if we set up some memory which is set as "access-disabled" via
protection keys, we can still execute from it.

This patch uses protection keys to set up mappings to do just that.
If a user calls:

	mmap(..., PROT_EXEC);
or
	mprotect(ptr, sz, PROT_EXEC);

(note PROT_EXEC-only without PROT_READ/WRITE), the kernel will
notice this, and set a special protection key on the memory.  It
also sets the appropriate bits in the Protection Keys User Rights
(PKRU) register so that the memory becomes unreadable and
unwritable.

I haven't found any userspace that does this today.  With this
facility in place, we expect userspace to move to use it
eventually.  Userspace _could_ start doing this today.  Any
PROT_EXEC calls get converted to PROT_READ inside the kernel, and
would transparently be upgraded to "true" PROT_EXEC with this
code.  IOW, userspace never has to do any PROT_EXEC runtime
detection.

This feature provides enhanced protection against leaking
executable memory contents.  This helps thwart attacks which are
attempting to find ROP gadgets on the fly.

But, the security provided by this approach is not comprehensive.
The PKRU register which controls access permissions is a normal
user register writable from unprivileged userspace.  An attacker
who can execute the 'wrpkru' instruction can easily disable the
protection provided by this feature.

The protection key that is used for execute-only support is
permanently dedicated at compile time.  This is fine for now
because there is currently no API to set a protection key other
than this one.

Despite there being a constant PKRU value across the entire
system, we do not set it unless this feature is in use in a
process.  That is to preserve the PKRU XSAVE 'init state',
which can lead to faster context switches.

PKRU *is* a user register and the kernel is modifying it.  That
means that code doing:

	pkru = rdpkru()
	pkru |= 0x100;
	mmap(..., PROT_EXEC);
	wrpkru(pkru);

could lose the bits in PKRU that enforce execute-only
permissions.  To avoid this, we suggest avoiding ever calling
mmap() or mprotect() when the PKRU value is expected to be
unstable.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@redhat.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Aneesh Kumar K.V <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Cc: Brian Gerst <brgerst@gmail.com>
Cc: Chen Gang <gang.chen.5i5j@gmail.com>
Cc: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Cc: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave@sr71.net>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <dahi@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Denys Vlasenko <dvlasenk@redhat.com>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Kirill A. Shutemov <kirill.shutemov@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Konstantin Khlebnikov <koct9i@gmail.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Mel Gorman <mgorman@suse.de>
Cc: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Piotr Kwapulinski <kwapulinski.piotr@gmail.com>
Cc: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Cc: Stephen Smalley <sds@tycho.nsa.gov>
Cc: Vladimir Murzin <vladimir.murzin@arm.com>
Cc: Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
Cc: keescook@google.com
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: linux-mm@kvack.org
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20160212210240.CB4BB5CA@viggo.jf.intel.com
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>