blob: 5cd58439ad2d6f7bf8a3d781f89ccd9bbb8e1597 [file] [log] [blame]
Dave Hansen4e6c2af2018-01-05 09:44:36 -08001Overview
2========
3
4Page Table Isolation (pti, previously known as KAISER[1]) is a
5countermeasure against attacks on the shared user/kernel address
6space such as the "Meltdown" approach[2].
7
8To mitigate this class of attacks, we create an independent set of
9page tables for use only when running userspace applications. When
10the kernel is entered via syscalls, interrupts or exceptions, the
11page tables are switched to the full "kernel" copy. When the system
12switches back to user mode, the user copy is used again.
13
14The userspace page tables contain only a minimal amount of kernel
15data: only what is needed to enter/exit the kernel such as the
16entry/exit functions themselves and the interrupt descriptor table
17(IDT). There are a few strictly unnecessary things that get mapped
18such as the first C function when entering an interrupt (see
19comments in pti.c).
20
21This approach helps to ensure that side-channel attacks leveraging
22the paging structures do not function when PTI is enabled. It can be
23enabled by setting CONFIG_PAGE_TABLE_ISOLATION=y at compile time.
24Once enabled at compile-time, it can be disabled at boot with the
25'nopti' or 'pti=' kernel parameters (see kernel-parameters.txt).
26
27Page Table Management
28=====================
29
30When PTI is enabled, the kernel manages two sets of page tables.
31The first set is very similar to the single set which is present in
32kernels without PTI. This includes a complete mapping of userspace
33that the kernel can use for things like copy_to_user().
34
35Although _complete_, the user portion of the kernel page tables is
36crippled by setting the NX bit in the top level. This ensures
37that any missed kernel->user CR3 switch will immediately crash
38userspace upon executing its first instruction.
39
40The userspace page tables map only the kernel data needed to enter
41and exit the kernel. This data is entirely contained in the 'struct
42cpu_entry_area' structure which is placed in the fixmap which gives
43each CPU's copy of the area a compile-time-fixed virtual address.
44
45For new userspace mappings, the kernel makes the entries in its
46page tables like normal. The only difference is when the kernel
47makes entries in the top (PGD) level. In addition to setting the
48entry in the main kernel PGD, a copy of the entry is made in the
49userspace page tables' PGD.
50
51This sharing at the PGD level also inherently shares all the lower
52layers of the page tables. This leaves a single, shared set of
53userspace page tables to manage. One PTE to lock, one set of
54accessed bits, dirty bits, etc...
55
56Overhead
57========
58
59Protection against side-channel attacks is important. But,
60this protection comes at a cost:
61
621. Increased Memory Use
63 a. Each process now needs an order-1 PGD instead of order-0.
64 (Consumes an additional 4k per process).
65 b. The 'cpu_entry_area' structure must be 2MB in size and 2MB
66 aligned so that it can be mapped by setting a single PMD
67 entry. This consumes nearly 2MB of RAM once the kernel
68 is decompressed, but no space in the kernel image itself.
69
702. Runtime Cost
71 a. CR3 manipulation to switch between the page table copies
72 must be done at interrupt, syscall, and exception entry
73 and exit (it can be skipped when the kernel is interrupted,
74 though.) Moves to CR3 are on the order of a hundred
75 cycles, and are required at every entry and exit.
76 b. A "trampoline" must be used for SYSCALL entry. This
77 trampoline depends on a smaller set of resources than the
78 non-PTI SYSCALL entry code, so requires mapping fewer
79 things into the userspace page tables. The downside is
80 that stacks must be switched at entry time.
zhenwei.pib9f8b592018-01-18 09:04:52 +080081 c. Global pages are disabled for all kernel structures not
Dave Hansen4e6c2af2018-01-05 09:44:36 -080082 mapped into both kernel and userspace page tables. This
83 feature of the MMU allows different processes to share TLB
84 entries mapping the kernel. Losing the feature means more
85 TLB misses after a context switch. The actual loss of
86 performance is very small, however, never exceeding 1%.
87 d. Process Context IDentifiers (PCID) is a CPU feature that
88 allows us to skip flushing the entire TLB when switching page
89 tables by setting a special bit in CR3 when the page tables
90 are changed. This makes switching the page tables (at context
91 switch, or kernel entry/exit) cheaper. But, on systems with
92 PCID support, the context switch code must flush both the user
93 and kernel entries out of the TLB. The user PCID TLB flush is
94 deferred until the exit to userspace, minimizing the cost.
95 See intel.com/sdm for the gory PCID/INVPCID details.
96 e. The userspace page tables must be populated for each new
97 process. Even without PTI, the shared kernel mappings
98 are created by copying top-level (PGD) entries into each
99 new process. But, with PTI, there are now *two* kernel
100 mappings: one in the kernel page tables that maps everything
101 and one for the entry/exit structures. At fork(), we need to
102 copy both.
103 f. In addition to the fork()-time copying, there must also
104 be an update to the userspace PGD any time a set_pgd() is done
105 on a PGD used to map userspace. This ensures that the kernel
106 and userspace copies always map the same userspace
107 memory.
108 g. On systems without PCID support, each CR3 write flushes
109 the entire TLB. That means that each syscall, interrupt
110 or exception flushes the TLB.
111 h. INVPCID is a TLB-flushing instruction which allows flushing
112 of TLB entries for non-current PCIDs. Some systems support
113 PCIDs, but do not support INVPCID. On these systems, addresses
114 can only be flushed from the TLB for the current PCID. When
115 flushing a kernel address, we need to flush all PCIDs, so a
116 single kernel address flush will require a TLB-flushing CR3
117 write upon the next use of every PCID.
118
119Possible Future Work
120====================
1211. We can be more careful about not actually writing to CR3
122 unless its value is actually changed.
1232. Allow PTI to be enabled/disabled at runtime in addition to the
124 boot-time switching.
125
126Testing
127========
128
129To test stability of PTI, the following test procedure is recommended,
130ideally doing all of these in parallel:
131
1321. Set CONFIG_DEBUG_ENTRY=y
1332. Run several copies of all of the tools/testing/selftests/x86/ tests
134 (excluding MPX and protection_keys) in a loop on multiple CPUs for
135 several minutes. These tests frequently uncover corner cases in the
136 kernel entry code. In general, old kernels might cause these tests
137 themselves to crash, but they should never crash the kernel.
1383. Run the 'perf' tool in a mode (top or record) that generates many
139 frequent performance monitoring non-maskable interrupts (see "NMI"
140 in /proc/interrupts). This exercises the NMI entry/exit code which
141 is known to trigger bugs in code paths that did not expect to be
142 interrupted, including nested NMIs. Using "-c" boosts the rate of
143 NMIs, and using two -c with separate counters encourages nested NMIs
144 and less deterministic behavior.
145
146 while true; do perf record -c 10000 -e instructions,cycles -a sleep 10; done
147
1484. Launch a KVM virtual machine.
1495. Run 32-bit binaries on systems supporting the SYSCALL instruction.
150 This has been a lightly-tested code path and needs extra scrutiny.
151
152Debugging
153=========
154
155Bugs in PTI cause a few different signatures of crashes
156that are worth noting here.
157
158 * Failures of the selftests/x86 code. Usually a bug in one of the
159 more obscure corners of entry_64.S
160 * Crashes in early boot, especially around CPU bringup. Bugs
161 in the trampoline code or mappings cause these.
162 * Crashes at the first interrupt. Caused by bugs in entry_64.S,
163 like screwing up a page table switch. Also caused by
164 incorrectly mapping the IRQ handler entry code.
165 * Crashes at the first NMI. The NMI code is separate from main
166 interrupt handlers and can have bugs that do not affect
167 normal interrupts. Also caused by incorrectly mapping NMI
168 code. NMIs that interrupt the entry code must be very
169 careful and can be the cause of crashes that show up when
170 running perf.
171 * Kernel crashes at the first exit to userspace. entry_64.S
172 bugs, or failing to map some of the exit code.
173 * Crashes at first interrupt that interrupts userspace. The paths
174 in entry_64.S that return to userspace are sometimes separate
175 from the ones that return to the kernel.
176 * Double faults: overflowing the kernel stack because of page
177 faults upon page faults. Caused by touching non-pti-mapped
178 data in the entry code, or forgetting to switch to kernel
179 CR3 before calling into C functions which are not pti-mapped.
180 * Userspace segfaults early in boot, sometimes manifesting
181 as mount(8) failing to mount the rootfs. These have
182 tended to be TLB invalidation issues. Usually invalidating
183 the wrong PCID, or otherwise missing an invalidation.
184
1851. https://gruss.cc/files/kaiser.pdf
1862. https://meltdownattack.com/meltdown.pdf