Re: [PATCH v6 11/10] x86/retpoline: Avoid return buffer underflows on context switch

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: Mon Jan 08 2018 - 18:56:37 EST


On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 3:44 PM, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> To guard against this fill the return buffer with controlled
> content during context switch. This prevents any underflows.

Ugh. I really dislike this patch. Everything else in the retpoline
patches makes me go "ok, that's reasonable". This one makes me go
"Eww".

It's hacky, it's ugly, and it looks pretty expensive too.

Is there really nothing more clever we can do?

Linus