Re: [PATCH] xen: core dom0 support

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Sun Mar 08 2009 - 18:06:37 EST



* H. Peter Anvin <hpa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Ingo Molnar wrote:
> >
> > Associativity effects do depend on the kernel image layout
> > and on the precise allocations of kernel data structure
> > allocations we do during bootup - and they dont really
> > change after that.
> >
>
> By the way, there is a really easy way (if a bit time
> consuming) to get the actual variability here -- you have to
> reboot between runs, even for the same kernel. It makes the
> data collection take a long time, but at least it can be
> scripted.

Since it's the same kernel image i think the only truly reliable
method would be to reboot between _different_ kernel images:
same instructions but randomly re-align variables both in terms
of absolute address and in terms of relative position to each
other. Plus randomize bootmem allocs and never-gets-freed-really
boot-time allocations.

Really hard to do i think ...

Ingo
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