Re: [PATCH 2/2] arm: apply more __ro_after_init

From: Russell King - ARM Linux
Date: Wed Aug 10 2016 - 19:07:01 EST


On Wed, Aug 10, 2016 at 09:41:23PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> It might be better to start by making the fixed mapping readonly,
> as KASLR doesn't protect that one at all, and change the TLS
> code accordingly.

I think that's impossible, because we gave userspace permission to
read 0xffff0ff0 directly without using __kuser_get_tls. You're
talking about potentially breaking userspace.

If you disable kuser helpers, then the page becomes read-only and
invisible to userspace anyway. So, everything is being done there
which can be done - if you have kuser helpers enabled, then you
lose some opportunities for these security improvements.

--
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