Re: [PATCH] tools/nolibc: x86: Remove `r8`, `r9` and `r10` from the clobber list

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Sat Oct 23 2021 - 16:42:08 EST




On 10/13/21 05:43, Borislav Petkov wrote:
On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 05:23:11AM +0700, Ammar Faizi wrote:
"Figure 3.4: Register Usage" is not the answer, if it were, nolibc.h
would be broken as it is missing "rdi", "rsi", "rdx" in the clobber list.

It is not about what happens in practice but what the contract is:
syscall argument registers can potentially get clobbered and userspace
should treat them as such. Because if the kernel decides to actually
clobber them for whatever reason and some userspace thing thinks
otherwise, then it is the userspace thing's problem as it doesn't adhere
to the well known ABI.


Currently the kernel doesn't, but some past kernels have zeroed some of these registers rather than preserving them.

-hpa