[PATCH v3 02/20] x86/mm: Introduce temporary mm structs

[Rick Edgecombe]

From: Andy Lutomirski <luto at kernel.org>

Using a dedicated page-table for temporary PTEs prevents other cores
from using - even speculatively - these PTEs, thereby providing two
benefits:

(1) Security hardening: an attacker that gains kernel memory writing
abilities cannot easily overwrite sensitive data.

(2) Avoiding TLB shootdowns: the PTEs do not need to be flushed in
remote page-tables.

To do so a temporary mm_struct can be used. Mappings which are private
for this mm can be set in the userspace part of the address-space.
During the whole time in which the temporary mm is loaded, interrupts
must be disabled.

The first use-case for temporary mm struct, which will follow, is for
poking the kernel text.

[ Commit message was written by Nadav Amit ]

Cc: Kees Cook <keescook at chromium.org>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen at intel.com>
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz at infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat at kernel.org>
Tested-by: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat at kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto at kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Nadav Amit <namit at vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: Rick Edgecombe <rick.p.edgecombe at intel.com>
---
 arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 33 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
index 19d18fae6ec6..d684b954f3c0 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h
@@ -356,4 +356,37 @@ static inline unsigned long __get_current_cr3_fast(void)
 	return cr3;
 }
 
+typedef struct {
+	struct mm_struct *prev;
+} temp_mm_state_t;
+
+/*
+ * Using a temporary mm allows to set temporary mappings that are not accessible
+ * by other cores. Such mappings are needed to perform sensitive memory writes
+ * that override the kernel memory protections (e.g., W^X), without exposing the
+ * temporary page-table mappings that are required for these write operations to
+ * other cores. Using temporary mm also allows to avoid TLB shootdowns when the
+ * mapping is torn down.
+ *
+ * Context: The temporary mm needs to be used exclusively by a single core. To
+ *          harden security IRQs must be disabled while the temporary mm is
+ *          loaded, thereby preventing interrupt handler bugs from overriding
+ *          the kernel memory protection.
+ */
+static inline temp_mm_state_t use_temporary_mm(struct mm_struct *mm)
+{
+	temp_mm_state_t state;
+
+	lockdep_assert_irqs_disabled();
+	state.prev = this_cpu_read(cpu_tlbstate.loaded_mm);
+	switch_mm_irqs_off(NULL, mm, current);
+	return state;
+}
+
+static inline void unuse_temporary_mm(temp_mm_state_t prev)
+{
+	lockdep_assert_irqs_disabled();
+	switch_mm_irqs_off(NULL, prev.prev, current);
+}
+
 #endif /* _ASM_X86_MMU_CONTEXT_H */
-- 
2.17.1