Re: [RFCv2 00/10] Linear Address Masking enabling

[Alexander Potapenko <glider@google.com>]

On Fri, May 13, 2022 at 1:28 PM David Laight <David.Laight@aculab.com> wrote:
>
> ...
> > Once we have the possibility to store tags in the pointers, we don't
> > need redzones for heap/stack objects anymore, which saves quite a bit
> > of memory.
>
> You still need redzones.
> The high bits are ignored for actual memory accesses.
>
> To do otherwise you'd need the high bits to be in the PTE,
> copied to the TLB and finally get into the cache tag.
>
> Then you'd have to use the correct tags for each page.

Sorry, I don't understand how this is relevant to HWASan in the userspace.
Like in ASan, we have a custom allocator that assigns tags to heap
objects. The assigned tag is stored in both the shadow memory for the
object and the pointer returned by the allocator.
Instrumentation inserted by the compiler checks the pointer before
every memory access and ensures that its tag matches the tag of the
object in the shadow memory.
A tag mismatch is reported as an out-of-bounds or a use-after-free,
depending on whether the accessed memory is still considered
allocated.
Because objects with different tags follow each other, there is no
need to add extra redzones to the objects to detect buffer overflows.
(We might need to increase the object alignment though, but that's a
different story).

>
>         David
>
> -
> Registered Address Lakeside, Bramley Road, Mount Farm, Milton Keynes, MK1 1PT, UK
> Registration No: 1397386 (Wales)



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Alexander Potapenko
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