On Mon, Feb 20, 2023 at 01:01:27PM +0100, KP Singh wrote: > +static inline bool spectre_v2_user_no_stibp(enum spectre_v2_mitigation mode) > +{ > + /* When IBRS or enhanced IBRS is enabled, STIBP is not needed. > + * > + * However, With KERNEL_IBRS, the IBRS bit is cleared on return > + * to user and the user-mode code needs to be able to enable protection > + * from cross-thread training, either by always enabling STIBP or > + * by enabling it via prctl. > + */ > + return (spectre_v2_in_ibrs_mode(mode) && > + !cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_KERNEL_IBRS)); > +} The comments and code confused me, they both seem to imply some distinction between IBRS and KERNEL_IBRS, but in the kernel those are functionally the same thing. e.g., the kernel doesn't have a user IBRS mode. And, unless I'm missing some subtlety here, it seems to be a convoluted way of saying that eIBRS doesn't need STIBP in user space. It would be simpler to just call it spectre_v2_in_eibrs_mode(). static inline bool spectre_v2_in_eibrs_mode(enum spectre_v2_mitigation mode) { return mode == SPECTRE_V2_EIBRS || mode == SPECTRE_V2_EIBRS_RETPOLINE || mode == SPECTRE_V2_EIBRS_LFENCE; } And then spectre_v2_in_ibrs_mode() could be changed to call that: static inline bool spectre_v2_in_eibrs_mode(enum spectre_v2_mitigation mode) { return spectre_v2_in_eibrs_mode(mode) || mode == SPECTRE_V2_IBRS; } > @@ -1496,6 +1504,7 @@ static void __init spectre_v2_select_mitigation(void) > break; > > case SPECTRE_V2_IBRS: > + pr_err("enabling KERNEL_IBRS"); Why? > @@ -2327,7 +2336,7 @@ static ssize_t mmio_stale_data_show_state(char *buf) > > static char *stibp_state(void) > { > - if (spectre_v2_in_ibrs_mode(spectre_v2_enabled)) > + if (spectre_v2_user_no_stibp(spectre_v2_enabled)) > return ""; This seems like old cruft, can we just remove this check altogether? In the eIBRS case, spectre_v2_user_stibp will already have its default of SPECTRE_V2_USER_NONE. -- Josh