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| author | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2025-05-11 17:23:03 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> | 2025-05-11 17:23:03 -0700 |
| commit | 6f5bf947bab06f37ff931c359fd5770c4d9cbf87 (patch) | |
| tree | a0a0cba694124523f4d9292f1f74bb94c5328292 /Documentation | |
| parent | caf12fa9c066bb81e6a2f05dc441a89a1160c0fe (diff) | |
| parent | 7a9b709e7cc5ce1ffb84ce07bf6d157e1de758df (diff) | |
| download | linux-next-6f5bf947bab06f37ff931c359fd5770c4d9cbf87.tar.gz linux-next-6f5bf947bab06f37ff931c359fd5770c4d9cbf87.zip | |
Merge tag 'its-for-linus-20250509' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip
Pull x86 ITS mitigation from Dave Hansen:
"Mitigate Indirect Target Selection (ITS) issue.
I'd describe this one as a good old CPU bug where the behavior is
_obviously_ wrong, but since it just results in bad predictions it
wasn't wrong enough to notice. Well, the researchers noticed and also
realized that thus bug undermined a bunch of existing indirect branch
mitigations.
Thus the unusually wide impact on this one. Details:
ITS is a bug in some Intel CPUs that affects indirect branches
including RETs in the first half of a cacheline. Due to ITS such
branches may get wrongly predicted to a target of (direct or indirect)
branch that is located in the second half of a cacheline. Researchers
at VUSec found this behavior and reported to Intel.
Affected processors:
- Cascade Lake, Cooper Lake, Whiskey Lake V, Coffee Lake R, Comet
Lake, Ice Lake, Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake.
Scope of impact:
- Guest/host isolation:
When eIBRS is used for guest/host isolation, the indirect branches
in the VMM may still be predicted with targets corresponding to
direct branches in the guest.
- Intra-mode using cBPF:
cBPF can be used to poison the branch history to exploit ITS.
Realigning the indirect branches and RETs mitigates this attack
vector.
- User/kernel:
With eIBRS enabled user/kernel isolation is *not* impacted by ITS.
- Indirect Branch Prediction Barrier (IBPB):
Due to this bug indirect branches may be predicted with targets
corresponding to direct branches which were executed prior to IBPB.
This will be fixed in the microcode.
Mitigation:
As indirect branches in the first half of cacheline are affected, the
mitigation is to replace those indirect branches with a call to thunk that
is aligned to the second half of the cacheline.
RETs that take prediction from RSB are not affected, but they may be
affected by RSB-underflow condition. So, RETs in the first half of
cacheline are also patched to a return thunk that executes the RET aligned
to second half of cacheline"
* tag 'its-for-linus-20250509' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip:
selftest/x86/bugs: Add selftests for ITS
x86/its: FineIBT-paranoid vs ITS
x86/its: Use dynamic thunks for indirect branches
x86/ibt: Keep IBT disabled during alternative patching
mm/execmem: Unify early execmem_cache behaviour
x86/its: Align RETs in BHB clear sequence to avoid thunking
x86/its: Add support for RSB stuffing mitigation
x86/its: Add "vmexit" option to skip mitigation on some CPUs
x86/its: Enable Indirect Target Selection mitigation
x86/its: Add support for ITS-safe return thunk
x86/its: Add support for ITS-safe indirect thunk
x86/its: Enumerate Indirect Target Selection (ITS) bug
Documentation: x86/bugs/its: Add ITS documentation
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
4 files changed, 188 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-devices-system-cpu b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-devices-system-cpu index 206079d3bd5b..6a1acabb29d8 100644 --- a/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-devices-system-cpu +++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-devices-system-cpu @@ -511,6 +511,7 @@ Description: information about CPUs heterogeneity. What: /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/gather_data_sampling + /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/indirect_target_selection /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/itlb_multihit /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/l1tf /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/mds diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/index.rst index 451874b8135d..ce296b8430fc 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/index.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/index.rst @@ -23,3 +23,4 @@ are configurable at compile, boot or run time. gather_data_sampling reg-file-data-sampling rsb + indirect-target-selection diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/indirect-target-selection.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/indirect-target-selection.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..d9ca64108d23 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/indirect-target-selection.rst @@ -0,0 +1,168 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +Indirect Target Selection (ITS) +=============================== + +ITS is a vulnerability in some Intel CPUs that support Enhanced IBRS and were +released before Alder Lake. ITS may allow an attacker to control the prediction +of indirect branches and RETs located in the lower half of a cacheline. + +ITS is assigned CVE-2024-28956 with a CVSS score of 4.7 (Medium). + +Scope of Impact +--------------- +- **eIBRS Guest/Host Isolation**: Indirect branches in KVM/kernel may still be + predicted with unintended target corresponding to a branch in the guest. + +- **Intra-Mode BTI**: In-kernel training such as through cBPF or other native + gadgets. + +- **Indirect Branch Prediction Barrier (IBPB)**: After an IBPB, indirect + branches may still be predicted with targets corresponding to direct branches + executed prior to the IBPB. This is fixed by the IPU 2025.1 microcode, which + should be available via distro updates. Alternatively microcode can be + obtained from Intel's github repository [#f1]_. + +Affected CPUs +------------- +Below is the list of ITS affected CPUs [#f2]_ [#f3]_: + + ======================== ============ ==================== =============== + Common name Family_Model eIBRS Intra-mode BTI + Guest/Host Isolation + ======================== ============ ==================== =============== + SKYLAKE_X (step >= 6) 06_55H Affected Affected + ICELAKE_X 06_6AH Not affected Affected + ICELAKE_D 06_6CH Not affected Affected + ICELAKE_L 06_7EH Not affected Affected + TIGERLAKE_L 06_8CH Not affected Affected + TIGERLAKE 06_8DH Not affected Affected + KABYLAKE_L (step >= 12) 06_8EH Affected Affected + KABYLAKE (step >= 13) 06_9EH Affected Affected + COMETLAKE 06_A5H Affected Affected + COMETLAKE_L 06_A6H Affected Affected + ROCKETLAKE 06_A7H Not affected Affected + ======================== ============ ==================== =============== + +- All affected CPUs enumerate Enhanced IBRS feature. +- IBPB isolation is affected on all ITS affected CPUs, and need a microcode + update for mitigation. +- None of the affected CPUs enumerate BHI_CTRL which was introduced in Golden + Cove (Alder Lake and Sapphire Rapids). This can help guests to determine the + host's affected status. +- Intel Atom CPUs are not affected by ITS. + +Mitigation +---------- +As only the indirect branches and RETs that have their last byte of instruction +in the lower half of the cacheline are vulnerable to ITS, the basic idea behind +the mitigation is to not allow indirect branches in the lower half. + +This is achieved by relying on existing retpoline support in the kernel, and in +compilers. ITS-vulnerable retpoline sites are runtime patched to point to newly +added ITS-safe thunks. These safe thunks consists of indirect branch in the +second half of the cacheline. Not all retpoline sites are patched to thunks, if +a retpoline site is evaluated to be ITS-safe, it is replaced with an inline +indirect branch. + +Dynamic thunks +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +From a dynamically allocated pool of safe-thunks, each vulnerable site is +replaced with a new thunk, such that they get a unique address. This could +improve the branch prediction accuracy. Also, it is a defense-in-depth measure +against aliasing. + +Note, for simplicity, indirect branches in eBPF programs are always replaced +with a jump to a static thunk in __x86_indirect_its_thunk_array. If required, +in future this can be changed to use dynamic thunks. + +All vulnerable RETs are replaced with a static thunk, they do not use dynamic +thunks. This is because RETs get their prediction from RSB mostly that does not +depend on source address. RETs that underflow RSB may benefit from dynamic +thunks. But, RETs significantly outnumber indirect branches, and any benefit +from a unique source address could be outweighed by the increased icache +footprint and iTLB pressure. + +Retpoline +~~~~~~~~~ +Retpoline sequence also mitigates ITS-unsafe indirect branches. For this +reason, when retpoline is enabled, ITS mitigation only relocates the RETs to +safe thunks. Unless user requested the RSB-stuffing mitigation. + +RSB Stuffing +~~~~~~~~~~~~ +RSB-stuffing via Call Depth Tracking is a mitigation for Retbleed RSB-underflow +attacks. And it also mitigates RETs that are vulnerable to ITS. + +Mitigation in guests +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ +All guests deploy ITS mitigation by default, irrespective of eIBRS enumeration +and Family/Model of the guest. This is because eIBRS feature could be hidden +from a guest. One exception to this is when a guest enumerates BHI_DIS_S, which +indicates that the guest is running on an unaffected host. + +To prevent guests from unnecessarily deploying the mitigation on unaffected +platforms, Intel has defined ITS_NO bit(62) in MSR IA32_ARCH_CAPABILITIES. When +a guest sees this bit set, it should not enumerate the ITS bug. Note, this bit +is not set by any hardware, but is **intended for VMMs to synthesize** it for +guests as per the host's affected status. + +Mitigation options +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ +The ITS mitigation can be controlled using the "indirect_target_selection" +kernel parameter. The available options are: + + ======== =================================================================== + on (default) Deploy the "Aligned branch/return thunks" mitigation. + If spectre_v2 mitigation enables retpoline, aligned-thunks are only + deployed for the affected RET instructions. Retpoline mitigates + indirect branches. + + off Disable ITS mitigation. + + vmexit Equivalent to "=on" if the CPU is affected by guest/host isolation + part of ITS. Otherwise, mitigation is not deployed. This option is + useful when host userspace is not in the threat model, and only + attacks from guest to host are considered. + + stuff Deploy RSB-fill mitigation when retpoline is also deployed. + Otherwise, deploy the default mitigation. When retpoline mitigation + is enabled, RSB-stuffing via Call-Depth-Tracking also mitigates + ITS. + + force Force the ITS bug and deploy the default mitigation. + ======== =================================================================== + +Sysfs reporting +--------------- + +The sysfs file showing ITS mitigation status is: + + /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/indirect_target_selection + +Note, microcode mitigation status is not reported in this file. + +The possible values in this file are: + +.. list-table:: + + * - Not affected + - The processor is not vulnerable. + * - Vulnerable + - System is vulnerable and no mitigation has been applied. + * - Vulnerable, KVM: Not affected + - System is vulnerable to intra-mode BTI, but not affected by eIBRS + guest/host isolation. + * - Mitigation: Aligned branch/return thunks + - The mitigation is enabled, affected indirect branches and RETs are + relocated to safe thunks. + * - Mitigation: Retpolines, Stuffing RSB + - The mitigation is enabled using retpoline and RSB stuffing. + +References +---------- +.. [#f1] Microcode repository - https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files + +.. [#f2] Affected Processors list - https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/topic-technology/software-security-guidance/processors-affected-consolidated-product-cpu-model.html + +.. [#f3] Affected Processors list (machine readable) - https://github.com/intel/Intel-affected-processor-list diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt index d9fd26b95b34..8f75ec177399 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt @@ -2202,6 +2202,23 @@ different crypto accelerators. This option can be used to achieve best performance for particular HW. + indirect_target_selection= [X86,Intel] Mitigation control for Indirect + Target Selection(ITS) bug in Intel CPUs. Updated + microcode is also required for a fix in IBPB. + + on: Enable mitigation (default). + off: Disable mitigation. + force: Force the ITS bug and deploy default + mitigation. + vmexit: Only deploy mitigation if CPU is affected by + guest/host isolation part of ITS. + stuff: Deploy RSB-fill mitigation when retpoline is + also deployed. Otherwise, deploy the default + mitigation. + + For details see: + Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/indirect-target-selection.rst + init= [KNL] Format: <full_path> Run specified binary instead of /sbin/init as init @@ -3693,6 +3710,7 @@ expose users to several CPU vulnerabilities. Equivalent to: if nokaslr then kpti=0 [ARM64] gather_data_sampling=off [X86] + indirect_target_selection=off [X86] kvm.nx_huge_pages=off [X86] l1tf=off [X86] mds=off [X86] |
