4.4-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. ------------------ From: Mathias Krause <minipli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> commit 6b32c126d33d5cb379bca280ab8acedc1ca978ff upstream. The alt_max_short() macro in asm/alternative.h does not work as intended, leading to nasty bugs. E.g. alt_max_short("1", "3") evaluates to 3, but alt_max_short("3", "1") evaluates to 1 -- not exactly the maximum of 1 and 3. In fact, I had to learn it the hard way by crashing my kernel in not so funny ways by attempting to make use of the ALTENATIVE_2 macro with alternatives where the first one was larger than the second one. According to [1] and commit dbe4058a6a44 ("x86/alternatives: Fix ALTERNATIVE_2 padding generation properly") the right handed side should read "-(-(a < b))" not "-(-(a - b))". Fix that, to make the macro work as intended. While at it, fix up the comments regarding the additional "-", too. It's not about gas' usage of s32 but brain dead logic of having a "true" value of -1 for the < operator ... *sigh* Btw., the one in asm/alternative-asm.h is correct. And, apparently, all current users of ALTERNATIVE_2() pass same sized alternatives, avoiding to hit the bug. [1] http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#IntegerMinOrMax Reviewed-and-tested-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx> Fixes: dbe4058a6a44 ("x86/alternatives: Fix ALTERNATIVE_2 padding generation properly") Signed-off-by: Mathias Krause <minipli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1507228213-13095-1-git-send-email-minipli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- arch/x86/include/asm/alternative-asm.h | 4 +++- arch/x86/include/asm/alternative.h | 6 +++--- 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/alternative-asm.h +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/alternative-asm.h @@ -62,8 +62,10 @@ #define new_len2 145f-144f /* - * max without conditionals. Idea adapted from: + * gas compatible max based on the idea from: * http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#IntegerMinOrMax + * + * The additional "-" is needed because gas uses a "true" value of -1. */ #define alt_max_short(a, b) ((a) ^ (((a) ^ (b)) & -(-((a) < (b))))) --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/alternative.h +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/alternative.h @@ -102,12 +102,12 @@ static inline int alternatives_text_rese alt_end_marker ":\n" /* - * max without conditionals. Idea adapted from: + * gas compatible max based on the idea from: * http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#IntegerMinOrMax * - * The additional "-" is needed because gas works with s32s. + * The additional "-" is needed because gas uses a "true" value of -1. */ -#define alt_max_short(a, b) "((" a ") ^ (((" a ") ^ (" b ")) & -(-((" a ") - (" b ")))))" +#define alt_max_short(a, b) "((" a ") ^ (((" a ") ^ (" b ")) & -(-((" a ") < (" b ")))))" /* * Pad the second replacement alternative with additional NOPs if it is