Re: [PATCH v8 07/10] x86, mpx: decode MPX instruction to get bound violation information

[Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2014, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> On 09/11/2014 04:37 PM, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> > > 
> > > Specifically because marshaling the data in and out of the generic
> > > decoder was more complex than a special-purpose decoder.
> > 
> > I did not look at that detail and I trust your judgement here, but
> > that is in no way explained in the changelog.
> > 
> > This whole patchset is a pain to review due to half baken changelogs
> > and complete lack of a proper design description.
> > 
> 
> I'm not wedded to that concept, by the way, but using the generic parser had a
> whole bunch of its own problems, including the fact that you're getting bytes
> from user space.

Errm. The instruction decoder does not even know about user space.

      u8 buf[MAX_INSN_SIZE];

      memset(buf, 0, MAX_INSN_SIZE);
      if (copy_from_user(buf, addr, MAX_INSN_SIZE))
      	    return 0;

      insn_init(insn, buf, is_64bit(current));

      /* Process the entire instruction */
      insn_get_length(insn);

      /* Decode the faulting address */
      return mpx_get_addr(insn, regs);

I really can't see why that should not work. insn_get_length()
retrieves exactly the information which is required to call
mpx_get_addr().

Sure it might be a bit slower because the generic decoder does a bit
more than the mpx private sauce, but this happens in the context of a
bounds violation and it really does not matter at all whether SIGSEGV
is delivered 5 microseconds later or not.

The only difference is the insn->limit handling in the MPX
decoder. The existing decoder has a limit check of:

#define MAX_INSN_SIZE       16

and MPX private one makes that

#define MAX_MPX_INSN_SIZE   15

and limits it runtime further to:

    MAX_MPX_INSN_SIZE - bytes_not_copied_from_user_space;

This is beyond silly, really. If we cannot copy 16 bytes from user
space, why bother in dealing with a partial copy at all.

Aside of that the existing decoder handles the 32bit app on a 64bit
kernel already correctly while the extra magic MPX decoder does
not. It just adds some magically optimized and different copy of the
existing decoder for exactly ZERO value.

> It might be worthwhile to compare the older patchset which did use the generic
> parser to make sure that it actually made sense.

I can't find such a thing. The first version I found contains an even
more convoluted private parser. Intelnal mail perhaps?

Thanks,

	tglx

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