kernel-hardening - Re: [PATCH v3 00/13] Virtually mapped stacks with guard pages (x86, core)

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Message-ID: <CA+55aFy54iDN56FDJAz3A8epRvKECVO+nL5LaMxdmKrFEOm05w@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2016 10:52:58 -0700
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@...hat.com>, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>, Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>, 
	"the arch/x86 maintainers" <x86@...nel.org>, Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, 
	"linux-arch@...r.kernel.org" <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>, 
	Nadav Amit <nadav.amit@...il.com>, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, 
	Brian Gerst <brgerst@...il.com>, 
	"kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com" <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>, Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@...hat.com>, 
	Jann Horn <jann@...jh.net>, Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 00/13] Virtually mapped stacks with guard pages (x86, core)

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 10:44 AM, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:
>
> The thread_info->tsk pointer, that was one of the most critical issues
> and the main raison d'être of the thread_info, has been replaced on
> x86 by just using the per-cpu "current_task". Yes,.there are probably
> more than a few "ti->task" users left for legacy reasons, harking back
> to when the thread-info was cheaper to access, but it shouldn't be a
> big deal.

Ugh. Looking around at this, it turns out that a great example of this
kind of legacy issue is the debug_mutex stuff.

It uses "struct thread_info *" as the owner pointer, and there is _no_
existing reason for it. In fact, in every single place it actually
wants the task_struct, and it does task_thread_info(task) just to
convert it to the thread-info, and then converts it back with
"ti->task".

So the attached patch seems to be the right thing to do regardless of
this whole discussion.

                   Linus

View attachment "patch.diff" of type "text/plain" (3823 bytes)

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