diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/spectre.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/spectre.rst | 29 |
1 files changed, 24 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/spectre.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/spectre.rst index 6bd97cd50d62..0fba3758d0da 100644 --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/spectre.rst +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/hw-vuln/spectre.rst @@ -422,6 +422,14 @@ The possible values in this file are: 'RSB filling' Protection of RSB on context switch enabled ============= =========================================== + - EIBRS Post-barrier Return Stack Buffer (PBRSB) protection status: + + =========================== ======================================================= + 'PBRSB-eIBRS: SW sequence' CPU is affected and protection of RSB on VMEXIT enabled + 'PBRSB-eIBRS: Vulnerable' CPU is vulnerable + 'PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected' CPU is not affected by PBRSB + =========================== ======================================================= + Full mitigation might require a microcode update from the CPU vendor. When the necessary microcode is not available, the kernel will report vulnerability. @@ -471,8 +479,16 @@ Spectre variant 2 On Intel Skylake-era systems the mitigation covers most, but not all, cases. See :ref:`[3] <spec_ref3>` for more details. - On CPUs with hardware mitigation for Spectre variant 2 (e.g. Enhanced - IBRS on x86), retpoline is automatically disabled at run time. + On CPUs with hardware mitigation for Spectre variant 2 (e.g. IBRS + or enhanced IBRS on x86), retpoline is automatically disabled at run time. + + Systems which support enhanced IBRS (eIBRS) enable IBRS protection once at + boot, by setting the IBRS bit, and they're automatically protected against + Spectre v2 variant attacks, including cross-thread branch target injections + on SMT systems (STIBP). In other words, eIBRS enables STIBP too. + + Legacy IBRS systems clear the IBRS bit on exit to userspace and + therefore explicitly enable STIBP for that The retpoline mitigation is turned on by default on vulnerable CPUs. It can be forced on or off by the administrator @@ -496,9 +512,12 @@ Spectre variant 2 For Spectre variant 2 mitigation, individual user programs can be compiled with return trampolines for indirect branches. This protects them from consuming poisoned entries in the branch - target buffer left by malicious software. Alternatively, the - programs can disable their indirect branch speculation via prctl() - (See :ref:`Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst <set_spec_ctrl>`). + target buffer left by malicious software. + + On legacy IBRS systems, at return to userspace, implicit STIBP is disabled + because the kernel clears the IBRS bit. In this case, the userspace programs + can disable indirect branch speculation via prctl() (See + :ref:`Documentation/userspace-api/spec_ctrl.rst <set_spec_ctrl>`). On x86, this will turn on STIBP to guard against attacks from the sibling thread when the user program is running, and use IBPB to flush the branch target buffer when switching to/from the program. |