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authorSean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>2025-09-19 15:32:25 -0700
committerSean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>2025-09-23 09:14:33 -0700
commit57c3db7e2e26970ee3630a25913368f849ea803a (patch)
treebddd9d49958a33f1d8478ae47fa2a1affbc0a64c /tools/perf/scripts/python/task-analyzer.py
parent584ba3ffb9843fd12d3b4a33cfe056e2264392a0 (diff)
KVM: x86: Don't emulate instructions affected by CET features
Don't emulate branch instructions, e.g. CALL/RET/JMP etc., that are affected by Shadow Stacks and/or Indirect Branch Tracking when said features are enabled in the guest, as fully emulating CET would require significant complexity for no practical benefit (KVM shouldn't need to emulate branch instructions on modern hosts). Simply doing nothing isn't an option as that would allow a malicious entity to subvert CET protections via the emulator. To detect instructions that are subject to IBT or affect IBT state, use the existing IsBranch flag along with the source operand type to detect indirect branches, and the existing NearBranch flag to detect far JMPs and CALLs, all of which are effectively indirect. Explicitly check for emulation of IRET, FAR RET (IMM), and SYSEXIT (the ret-like far branches) instead of adding another flag, e.g. IsRet, as it's unlikely the emulator will ever need to check for return-like instructions outside of this one specific flow. Use an allow-list instead of a deny-list because (a) it's a shorter list and (b) so that a missed entry gets a false positive, not a false negative (i.e. reject emulation instead of clobbering CET state). For Shadow Stacks, explicitly track instructions that directly affect the current SSP, as KVM's emulator doesn't have existing flags that can be used to precisely detect such instructions. Alternatively, the em_xxx() helpers could directly check for ShadowStack interactions, but using a dedicated flag is arguably easier to audit, and allows for handling both IBT and SHSTK in one fell swoop. Note! On far transfers, do NOT consult the current privilege level and instead treat SHSTK/IBT as being enabled if they're enabled for User *or* Supervisor mode. On inter-privilege level far transfers, SHSTK and IBT can be in play for the target privilege level, i.e. checking the current privilege could get a false negative, and KVM doesn't know the target privilege level until emulation gets under way. Note #2, FAR JMP from 64-bit mode to compatibility mode interacts with the current SSP, but only to ensure SSP[63:32] == 0. Don't tag FAR JMP as SHSTK, which would be rather confusing and would result in FAR JMP being rejected unnecessarily the vast majority of the time (ignoring that it's unlikely to ever be emulated). A future commit will add the #GP(0) check for the specific FAR JMP scenario. Note #3, task switches also modify SSP and so need to be rejected. That too will be addressed in a future commit. Suggested-by: Chao Gao <chao.gao@intel.com> Originally-by: Yang Weijiang <weijiang.yang@intel.com> Cc: Mathias Krause <minipli@grsecurity.net> Cc: John Allen <john.allen@amd.com> Cc: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe@intel.com> Reviewed-by: Chao Gao <chao.gao@intel.com> Reviewed-by: Binbin Wu <binbin.wu@linux.intel.com> Reviewed-by: Xiaoyao Li <xiaoyao.li@intel.com> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250919223258.1604852-19-seanjc@google.com Signed-off-by: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
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