Patch "kaiser: do not set _PAGE_NX on pgd_none" has been added to the 4.4-stable tree

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

kaiser: do not set _PAGE_NX on pgd_none

to the 4.4-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:
kaiser-do-not-set-_page_nx-on-pgd_none.patch
and it can be found in the queue-4.4 subdirectory.

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

From: Hugh Dickins <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2017 12:05:01 -0700
Subject: kaiser: do not set _PAGE_NX on pgd_none

From: Hugh Dickins <[email protected]>

native_pgd_clear() uses native_set_pgd(), so native_set_pgd() must avoid setting the _PAGE_NX bit on an otherwise pgd_none() entry:
usually that just generated a warning on exit, but sometimes more mysterious and damaging failures (our production machines could not complete booting).

The original fix to this just avoided adding _PAGE_NX to an empty entry; but eventually more problems surfaced with kexec, and EFI mapping expected to be a problem too. So now instead change native_set_pgd() to update shadow only if _PAGE_USER:

A few places (kernel/machine_kexec_64.c, platform/efi/efi_64.c for sure) use set_pgd() to set up a temporary internal virtual address space, with physical pages remapped at what Kaiser regards as userspace addresses:
Kaiser then assumes a shadow pgd follows, which it will try to corrupt.

This appears to be responsible for the recent kexec and kdump failures; though it's unclear how those did not manifest as a problem before. Ah, the shadow pgd will only be assumed to "follow" if the requested pgd is on an even-numbered page: so I suppose it was going wrong 50% of the time all along.

What we need is a flag to set_pgd(), to tell it we're dealing with userspace. Er, isn't that what the pgd's _PAGE_USER bit is saying? Add a test for that. But we cannot do the same for pgd_clear() (which may be called to clear corrupted entries - set aside the question of "corrupt in which pgd?" until later), so there just rely on pgd_clear() not being called in the problematic cases - with a WARN_ON_ONCE() which should fire half the time if it is.

But this is getting too big for an inline function: move it into arch/x86/mm/kaiser.c (which then demands a boot/compressed mod); and de-void and de-space native_get_shadow/normal_pgd() while here.

---
 arch/x86/boot/compressed/misc.h   |    1 
 arch/x86/include/asm/pgtable_64.h |   51 +++++++++-----------------------------
 arch/x86/mm/kaiser.c              |   42 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 56 insertions(+), 38 deletions(-)

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
  */
 #undef CONFIG_PARAVIRT
 #undef CONFIG_PARAVIRT_SPINLOCKS
+#undef CONFIG_KAISER
 #undef CONFIG_KASAN
 
 #include <linux/linkage.h>

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

queue-4.4/kaiser-vmstat-show-nr_kaisertable-as-nr_overhead.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-add-nokaiser-boot-option-using-alternative.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-unlikely-error-in-alloc_ldt_struct.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-_pgd_alloc-without-__gfp_repeat-to-avoid-stalls.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kaiser_flush_tlb_on_return_to_user-check-pcid.patch queue-4.4/x86-paravirt-dont-patch-flush_tlb_single.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-merged-update.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-delete-kaiser_real_switch-option.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kaiser_remove_mapping-move-along-the-pgd.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-perf-crashes.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-drop-is_atomic-arg-to-kaiser_pagetable_walk.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-load_new_mm_cr3-let-switch_user_cr3-flush-user.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-enhanced-by-kernel-and-user-pcids.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-x86_cr3_pcid_noflush-and-x86_cr3_pcid_user.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-use-alternative-instead-of-x86_cr3_pcid_noflush.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-stack-map-page_size-at-thread_size-page_size.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-name-that-0x1000-kaiser_shadow_pgd_offset.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-regs-to-do_nmi-ifndef-config_kaiser.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-do-not-set-_page_nx-on-pgd_none.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-tidied-up-asm-kaiser.h-somewhat.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-cleanups-while-trying-for-gold-link.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-tidied-up-kaiser_add-remove_mapping-slightly.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-fix-build-and-fixme-in-alloc_ldt_struct.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kernel-address-isolation.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-enomem-if-kaiser_pagetable_walk-null.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-asm-tlbflush.h-handle-nopge-at-lower-level.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-paranoid_entry-pass-cr3-need-to-paranoid_exit.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-kaiser-depends-on-smp.patch queue-4.4/kaiser-pcid-0-for-kernel-and-128-for-user.patch