On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 11:30 PM Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 10:07:37PM +0200, Jann Horn wrote: > > On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 9:31 PM Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > This provides the ability for architectures to enable kernel stack base > > > address offset randomization. This feature is controlled by the boot > > > param "randomize_kstack_offset=on/off", with its default value set by > > > CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_KSTACK_OFFSET_DEFAULT. > > [...] > > > +#define add_random_kstack_offset() do { \ > > > + if (static_branch_maybe(CONFIG_RANDOMIZE_KSTACK_OFFSET_DEFAULT, \ > > > + &randomize_kstack_offset)) { \ > > > + u32 offset = this_cpu_read(kstack_offset); \ > > > + u8 *ptr = __builtin_alloca(offset & 0x3FF); \ > > > + asm volatile("" : "=m"(*ptr)); \ > > > + } \ > > > +} while (0) > > > > clang generates better code here if the mask is stack-aligned - > > otherwise it needs to round the stack pointer / the offset: [...] > > Maybe this should be something along the lines of > > __builtin_alloca(offset & (0x3ff & ARCH_STACK_ALIGN_MASK)) (with > > appropriate definitions of the stack alignment mask depending on the > > architecture's choice of stack alignment for kernel code). > > Is that explicitly selected anywhere in the kernel? I thought the > alignment was left up to the compiler (as in I've seen bugs fixed where > the kernel had to deal with the alignment choices the compiler was > making...) No, at least on x86-64 and x86 Linux overrides the normal ABI. From arch/x86/Makefile: # For gcc stack alignment is specified with -mpreferred-stack-boundary, # clang has the option -mstack-alignment for that purpose. ifneq ($(call cc-option, -mpreferred-stack-boundary=4),) cc_stack_align4 := -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2 cc_stack_align8 := -mpreferred-stack-boundary=3 else ifneq ($(call cc-option, -mstack-alignment=16),) cc_stack_align4 := -mstack-alignment=4 cc_stack_align8 := -mstack-alignment=8 endif [...] ifeq ($(CONFIG_X86_32),y) [...] # Align the stack to the register width instead of using the default # alignment of 16 bytes. This reduces stack usage and the number of # alignment instructions. KBUILD_CFLAGS += $(call cc-option,$(cc_stack_align4)) [...] else [...] # By default gcc and clang use a stack alignment of 16 bytes for x86. # However the standard kernel entry on x86-64 leaves the stack on an # 8-byte boundary. If the compiler isn't informed about the actual # alignment it will generate extra alignment instructions for the # default alignment which keep the stack *mis*aligned. # Furthermore an alignment to the register width reduces stack usage # and the number of alignment instructions. KBUILD_CFLAGS += $(call cc-option,$(cc_stack_align8)) [...] endif Normal x86-64 ABI has 16-byte stack alignment; Linux kernel x86-64 ABI has 8-byte stack alignment. Similarly, the normal Linux 32-bit x86 ABI is 16-byte aligned; meanwhile Linux kernel x86 ABI has 4-byte stack alignment. This is because userspace code wants the stack to be sufficiently aligned for fancy SSE instructions and such; the kernel, on the other hand, never uses those in normal code, and cares about stack usage and such very much.