Re: [PATCH v3] x86/bugs: Enable STIBP for IBPB mitigated RetBleed

From: Greg KH
Date: Mon Aug 08 2022 - 10:23:12 EST


On Mon, Aug 08, 2022 at 09:17:02AM -0500, Kim Phillips wrote:
> AMD's "Technical Guidance for Mitigating Branch Type Confusion,
> Rev. 1.0 2022-07-12" whitepaper, under section 6.1.2 "IBPB On
> Privileged Mode Entry / SMT Safety" says:
>
> "Similar to the Jmp2Ret mitigation, if the code on the sibling thread
> cannot be trusted, software should set STIBP to 1 or disable SMT to
> ensure SMT safety when using this mitigation."
>
> So, like already being done for retbleed=unret, the also for
> retbleed=ibpb, force STIBP on machines that have it, and report
> its SMT vulnerability status accordingly.
>
> Link: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206537
> Fixes: 3ebc17006888 ("x86/bugs: Add retbleed=ibpb")
> Signed-off-by: Kim Phillips <kim.phillips@xxxxxxx>
> ---
> v3: "unret and ibpb mitigations" -> "UNRET and IBPB mitigations" (Mingo)
> v2: Justify and explain STIBP's role with IBPB (Boris)
>
> .../admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt | 20 ++++++++++++++-----
> arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c | 10 ++++++----
> 2 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

Any specific reason you don't want this also backported to the stable
kernel branches that have the other retbleed fixes in them?

thanks,

greg k-h