Re: Non-Exec stack patches

[John Reiser]

Jakub> but it is still possible some language interpreter or
Jakub> something builds code on the fly on the stack).

David> That's why there is mprotect().

But mprotect() costs enough (hundreds of cycles) to be a significant burden
in some cases.  Generating code to a stack region that is inherently
executable is inexpensive (even allowing for restrictive alignment and
avoiding I/D cache conflicts), is thread safe, is async-signal safe, and
takes less work than other alternatives.  Yes, the "black hats" do this;
so do the "white hats."  Please do not increase the minimum cost for
applications that want generate-and-execute on the stack at upredictable
high frequency.

--
John Reiser, jreiser@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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