Re: Wrong defaults in 3.7-rc3

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Fri Nov 16 2012 - 16:32:11 EST


On 11/15/2012 03:06 AM, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Supervisor Mode Access Prevention (X86_SMAP) [Y/n/?] (NEW)
>
> ...Slows stuff down, eats memory, only works on unreleased Intel CPUs
> (from 2013!) perhaps should be off by default?
>
> "Supervisor Mode Access Prevention (SMAP) is a security
> feature in newer Intel processors. There is a small
> performance cost if this enabled and turned on; there is
> also a small increase in the kernel size if this is enabled."
>

*Extremely* small. Unless you are targeting a specific processor there
is no point in disabling it. If anyone can find a non-SMAP processor on
which the overhead is measurable I would be highly surprised, except
perhaps some embedded 486 clone.

-hpa


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