Patch "perf/core: Drop kernel samples even though :u is specified" has been added to the 3.18-stable tree

This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled

perf/core: Drop kernel samples even though :u is specified

to the 3.18-stable tree which can be found at:
http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary

The filename of the patch is:
perf-core-drop-kernel-samples-even-though-u-is-specified.patch
and it can be found in the queue-3.18 subdirectory.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <[email protected]> know about it.

From: Jin Yao <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2017 18:09:07 +0800
Subject: perf/core: Drop kernel samples even though :u is specified

From: Jin Yao <[email protected]>

commit cc1582c231ea041fbc68861dfaf957eaf902b829 upstream.

When doing sampling, for example:

perf record -e cycles:u ...

On workloads that do a lot of kernel entry/exits we see kernel samples, even though :u is specified. This is due to skid existing.

This might be a security issue because it can leak kernel addresses even though kernel sampling support is disabled.

The patch drops the kernel samples if exclude_kernel is specified.

For example, test on Haswell desktop:

  perf record -e cycles:u <mgen>
  perf report --stdio

Before patch applied:

    99.77%  mgen     mgen              [.] buf_read
     0.20%  mgen     mgen              [.] rand_buf_init
     0.01%  mgen     [kernel.vmlinux]  [k] apic_timer_interrupt
     0.00%  mgen     mgen              [.] last_free_elem
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so      [.] __random_r
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so      [.] _int_malloc
     0.00%  mgen     mgen              [.] rand_array_init
     0.00%  mgen     [kernel.vmlinux]  [k] page_fault
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so      [.] __random
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so      [.] __strcasestr
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so        [.] strcmp
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so        [.] _dl_start
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so      [.] sched_setaffinity@@GLIBC_2.3.4
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so        [.] _start

We can see kernel symbols apic_timer_interrupt and page_fault.

After patch applied:

    99.79%  mgen     mgen           [.] buf_read
     0.19%  mgen     mgen           [.] rand_buf_init
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] __random_r
     0.00%  mgen     mgen           [.] rand_array_init
     0.00%  mgen     mgen           [.] last_free_elem
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] vfprintf
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] rand
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] __random
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] _int_malloc
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] _IO_doallocbuf
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so     [.] do_lookup_x
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so     [.] open_verify.constprop.7
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so     [.] _dl_important_hwcaps
     0.00%  mgen     libc-2.23.so   [.] sched_setaffinity@@GLIBC_2.3.4
     0.00%  mgen     ld-2.23.so     [.] _start

There are only userspace symbols.

---
 kernel/events/core.c |   21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+)

@@ -5761,6 +5761,21 @@ static void perf_log_throttle(struct per
 	perf_output_end(&handle);
 }
 
+static bool sample_is_allowed(struct perf_event *event, struct pt_regs *regs)
+{
+	/*
+	 * Due to interrupt latency (AKA "skid"), we may enter the
+	 * kernel before taking an overflow, even if the PMU is only
+	 * counting user events.
+	 * To avoid leaking information to userspace, we must always
+	 * reject kernel samples when exclude_kernel is set.
+	 */
+	if (event->attr.exclude_kernel && !user_mode(regs))
+		return false;
+
+	return true;
+}
+
 /*
  * Generic event overflow handling, sampling.
  */

@@ -5808,6 +5823,12 @@ static int __perf_event_overflow(struct
 	}
 
 	/*
+	 * For security, drop the skid kernel samples if necessary.
+	 */
+	if (!sample_is_allowed(event, regs))
+		return ret;
+
+	/*
 	 * XXX event_limit might not quite work as expected on inherited
 	 * events
 	 */

Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from [email protected] are

queue-3.18/perf-core-drop-kernel-samples-even-though-u-is-specified.patch