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x86/its: Use dynamic thunks for indirect branches
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ITS mitigation moves the unsafe indirect branches to a safe thunk. This
could degrade the prediction accuracy as the source address of indirect
branches becomes same for different execution paths.

To improve the predictions, and hence the performance, assign a separate
thunk for each indirect callsite. This is also a defense-in-depth measure
to avoid indirect branches aliasing with each other.

As an example, 5000 dynamic thunks would utilize around 16 bits of the
address space, thereby gaining entropy. For a BTB that uses
32 bits for indexing, dynamic thunks could provide better prediction
accuracy over fixed thunks.

Have ITS thunks be variable sized and use EXECMEM_MODULE_TEXT such that
they are both more flexible (got to extend them later) and live in 2M TLBs,
just like kernel code, avoiding undue TLB pressure.

Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Alexandre Chartre <alexandre.chartre@oracle.com>
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Peter Zijlstra authored and Dave Hansen committed May 9, 2025
1 parent ebebe30 commit 872df34
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Showing 6 changed files with 149 additions and 3 deletions.
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions arch/x86/Kconfig
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2714,6 +2714,7 @@ config MITIGATION_ITS
bool "Enable Indirect Target Selection mitigation"
depends on CPU_SUP_INTEL && X86_64
depends on MITIGATION_RETPOLINE && MITIGATION_RETHUNK
select EXECMEM
default y
help
Enable Indirect Target Selection (ITS) mitigation. ITS is a bug in
Expand Down
10 changes: 10 additions & 0 deletions arch/x86/include/asm/alternative.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -124,6 +124,16 @@ static __always_inline int x86_call_depth_emit_accounting(u8 **pprog,
}
#endif

#ifdef CONFIG_MITIGATION_ITS
extern void its_init_mod(struct module *mod);
extern void its_fini_mod(struct module *mod);
extern void its_free_mod(struct module *mod);
#else /* CONFIG_MITIGATION_ITS */
static inline void its_init_mod(struct module *mod) { }
static inline void its_fini_mod(struct module *mod) { }
static inline void its_free_mod(struct module *mod) { }
#endif

#if defined(CONFIG_MITIGATION_RETHUNK) && defined(CONFIG_OBJTOOL)
extern bool cpu_wants_rethunk(void);
extern bool cpu_wants_rethunk_at(void *addr);
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127 changes: 124 additions & 3 deletions arch/x86/kernel/alternative.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
#include <linux/mmu_context.h>
#include <linux/bsearch.h>
#include <linux/sync_core.h>
#include <linux/execmem.h>
#include <asm/text-patching.h>
#include <asm/alternative.h>
#include <asm/sections.h>
Expand All @@ -32,6 +33,7 @@
#include <asm/asm-prototypes.h>
#include <asm/cfi.h>
#include <asm/ibt.h>
#include <asm/set_memory.h>

int __read_mostly alternatives_patched;

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -125,6 +127,121 @@ const unsigned char * const x86_nops[ASM_NOP_MAX+1] =
#endif
};

#ifdef CONFIG_MITIGATION_ITS

static struct module *its_mod;
static void *its_page;
static unsigned int its_offset;

/* Initialize a thunk with the "jmp *reg; int3" instructions. */
static void *its_init_thunk(void *thunk, int reg)
{
u8 *bytes = thunk;
int i = 0;

if (reg >= 8) {
bytes[i++] = 0x41; /* REX.B prefix */
reg -= 8;
}
bytes[i++] = 0xff;
bytes[i++] = 0xe0 + reg; /* jmp *reg */
bytes[i++] = 0xcc;

return thunk;
}

void its_init_mod(struct module *mod)
{
if (!cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_INDIRECT_THUNK_ITS))
return;

mutex_lock(&text_mutex);
its_mod = mod;
its_page = NULL;
}

void its_fini_mod(struct module *mod)
{
if (!cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_INDIRECT_THUNK_ITS))
return;

WARN_ON_ONCE(its_mod != mod);

its_mod = NULL;
its_page = NULL;
mutex_unlock(&text_mutex);

for (int i = 0; i < mod->its_num_pages; i++) {
void *page = mod->its_page_array[i];
execmem_restore_rox(page, PAGE_SIZE);
}
}

void its_free_mod(struct module *mod)
{
if (!cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_INDIRECT_THUNK_ITS))
return;

for (int i = 0; i < mod->its_num_pages; i++) {
void *page = mod->its_page_array[i];
execmem_free(page);
}
kfree(mod->its_page_array);
}

static void *its_alloc(void)
{
void *page __free(execmem) = execmem_alloc(EXECMEM_MODULE_TEXT, PAGE_SIZE);

if (!page)
return NULL;

if (its_mod) {
void *tmp = krealloc(its_mod->its_page_array,
(its_mod->its_num_pages+1) * sizeof(void *),
GFP_KERNEL);
if (!tmp)
return NULL;

its_mod->its_page_array = tmp;
its_mod->its_page_array[its_mod->its_num_pages++] = page;

execmem_make_temp_rw(page, PAGE_SIZE);
}

return no_free_ptr(page);
}

static void *its_allocate_thunk(int reg)
{
int size = 3 + (reg / 8);
void *thunk;

if (!its_page || (its_offset + size - 1) >= PAGE_SIZE) {
its_page = its_alloc();
if (!its_page) {
pr_err("ITS page allocation failed\n");
return NULL;
}
memset(its_page, INT3_INSN_OPCODE, PAGE_SIZE);
its_offset = 32;
}

/*
* If the indirect branch instruction will be in the lower half
* of a cacheline, then update the offset to reach the upper half.
*/
if ((its_offset + size - 1) % 64 < 32)
its_offset = ((its_offset - 1) | 0x3F) + 33;

thunk = its_page + its_offset;
its_offset += size;

return its_init_thunk(thunk, reg);
}

#endif

/*
* Nomenclature for variable names to simplify and clarify this code and ease
* any potential staring at it:
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -637,9 +754,13 @@ static int emit_call_track_retpoline(void *addr, struct insn *insn, int reg, u8
#ifdef CONFIG_MITIGATION_ITS
static int emit_its_trampoline(void *addr, struct insn *insn, int reg, u8 *bytes)
{
return __emit_trampoline(addr, insn, bytes,
__x86_indirect_its_thunk_array[reg],
__x86_indirect_its_thunk_array[reg]);
u8 *thunk = __x86_indirect_its_thunk_array[reg];
u8 *tmp = its_allocate_thunk(reg);

if (tmp)
thunk = tmp;

return __emit_trampoline(addr, insn, bytes, thunk, thunk);
}

/* Check if an indirect branch is at ITS-unsafe address */
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6 changes: 6 additions & 0 deletions arch/x86/kernel/module.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -266,6 +266,8 @@ int module_finalize(const Elf_Ehdr *hdr,
ibt_endbr = s;
}

its_init_mod(me);

if (retpolines || cfi) {
void *rseg = NULL, *cseg = NULL;
unsigned int rsize = 0, csize = 0;
Expand All @@ -286,6 +288,9 @@ int module_finalize(const Elf_Ehdr *hdr,
void *rseg = (void *)retpolines->sh_addr;
apply_retpolines(rseg, rseg + retpolines->sh_size);
}

its_fini_mod(me);

if (returns) {
void *rseg = (void *)returns->sh_addr;
apply_returns(rseg, rseg + returns->sh_size);
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -326,4 +331,5 @@ int module_finalize(const Elf_Ehdr *hdr,
void module_arch_cleanup(struct module *mod)
{
alternatives_smp_module_del(mod);
its_free_mod(mod);
}
3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions include/linux/execmem.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -4,6 +4,7 @@

#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/moduleloader.h>
#include <linux/cleanup.h>

#if (defined(CONFIG_KASAN_GENERIC) || defined(CONFIG_KASAN_SW_TAGS)) && \
!defined(CONFIG_KASAN_VMALLOC)
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -176,6 +177,8 @@ void *execmem_alloc(enum execmem_type type, size_t size);
*/
void execmem_free(void *ptr);

DEFINE_FREE(execmem, void *, if (_T) execmem_free(_T));

#ifdef CONFIG_MMU
/**
* execmem_vmap - create virtual mapping for EXECMEM_MODULE_DATA memory
Expand Down
5 changes: 5 additions & 0 deletions include/linux/module.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -586,6 +586,11 @@ struct module {
atomic_t refcnt;
#endif

#ifdef CONFIG_MITIGATION_ITS
int its_num_pages;
void **its_page_array;
#endif

#ifdef CONFIG_CONSTRUCTORS
/* Constructor functions. */
ctor_fn_t *ctors;
Expand Down

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