Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] cpu: Ignore "mitigations" kernel parameter if CPU_MITIGATIONS=n

From: Borislav Petkov
Date: Sat Apr 20 2024 - 09:37:01 EST


On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 05:05:55PM -0700, Sean Christopherson wrote:
> diff --git a/arch/x86/Kconfig b/arch/x86/Kconfig
> index 619a04d5c131..928820e61cb5 100644
> --- a/arch/x86/Kconfig
> +++ b/arch/x86/Kconfig
> @@ -2495,9 +2495,13 @@ menuconfig CPU_MITIGATIONS
> help
> Say Y here to enable options which enable mitigations for hardware
> vulnerabilities (usually related to speculative execution).
> + Mitigations can be disabled or restricted to SMT systems at runtime
> + via the "mitigations" kernel parameter.
>
> - If you say N, all mitigations will be disabled. You really
> - should know what you are doing to say so.
> + If you say N, all mitigations will be disabled. This CANNOT be
> + overridden at runtime.

You probably wanna highlight the fact here that saying N means it'll
simply not even build in the mitigations code, leading to the physical
inability :) to enable them later, at run time.

--
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

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