Re: [PATCH v2 5/7] rust: file: add `Kuid` wrapper

[Miguel Ojeda]

On Wed, Dec 6, 2023 at 2:41 PM Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Anywhoo, the longer a function is, the harder it becomes, since you need
> to deal with everything a function does and consider the specuation
> window length. So trivial functions like the above that do an immediate
> dereference and are (and must be) a valid indirect target (because
> EXPORT) are ideal.

We discussed this in our weekly meeting, and we would like to ask a
few questions:

  - Could you please describe an example attack that you are thinking
of? (i.e. a "full" attack, rather than just Spectre itself). For
instance, would it rely on other vulnerabilities?

  - Is this a kernel rule everybody should follow now? i.e. "no (new?)
short, exported symbols that just dereference their pointer args". If
so, could this please be documented? Or is it already somewhere?

  - Are we checking for this in some way already, e.g. via `objtool`?
Especially if this is a rule, then it would be nice to have a way to
double-check if we are getting rid of (most of) these "dangerous"
symbols (or at least not introduce new ones, and not just in Rust but
C too).

Thanks Peter!

> That would be good, but how are you going to do that without duplicating
> the horror that is struct task_struct ?

As Alice pointed out, `bindgen` "solves" that, but it is nevertheless
extra maintenance effort.

> Well, I really wish the Rust community would address the C
> interoperability in a hurry. Basically make it a requirement for
> in-kernel Rust.

Yeah, some of us have advocated for more integrated C support within
Rust (or within `rustc` at least).

> I mean, how hard can it be to have clang parse the C headers and inject
> them into the Rust IR as if they're external FFI things.

That is what `bindgen` does (it uses Clang as a library), except it
does not create Rust IR, it outputs normal Rust code, i.e. similar to
C declarations.

But note that using Clang does not solve the issue of `#define`s in
the general case. That is why we would still need "helpers" like these
so that the compiler knows how to expand the macro in a C context,
which then can be inlined as LLVM IR or similar (which is what I
suspect you were actually thinking about, rather than "Rust IR"?).

That "mix the LLVM IRs from Clang and `rustc`" ("local LTO hack")
approach is something we have been discussing in the past for
performance reasons (i.e. to inline these small C functions that Rust
needs, cross-language, even in non-LTO builds). And if it helps to
avoid certain attacks around speculation, then even better. So if the
LLVM folks do not have any major concerns about it, then I think we
should go ahead with that (please see also my reply to comex).

GCC is still a question mark, though.

Cheers,
Miguel