Re: [PATCH v2] x86/bugs: Explicitly clear speculative MSR bits

From: Pawan Gupta
Date: Mon Nov 28 2022 - 18:02:28 EST


On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 11:40:19PM +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 02:03:58PM -0800, Pawan Gupta wrote:
diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
index 3e3230cccaa7..cfc2ed2661fc 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ static DEFINE_MUTEX(spec_ctrl_mutex);
*/
void write_spec_ctrl_current(u64 val, bool force)
{
- if (this_cpu_read(x86_spec_ctrl_current) == val)
+ if (!force && this_cpu_read(x86_spec_ctrl_current) == val)
return;
this_cpu_write(x86_spec_ctrl_current, val);

Still looks hacky to me.

I think it would be a lot cleaner if MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL gets cleaned of
the speculation bits in init_speculation_control() which gets run on
*every* CPU.

So by the time check_bugs() gets to setup stuff, the MSR will be ready
to go regardless.

I.e., something like this (not supposed to work - just to show what I
mean):

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/common.c b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/common.c
index 73cc546e024d..367732c92942 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/common.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/common.c
@@ -993,9 +993,19 @@ static void init_speculation_control(struct cpuinfo_x86 *c)
* Intel CPUs, for finer-grained selection of what's available.
*/
if (cpu_has(c, X86_FEATURE_SPEC_CTRL)) {
+ u64 msr;
+
set_cpu_cap(c, X86_FEATURE_IBRS);
set_cpu_cap(c, X86_FEATURE_IBPB);
set_cpu_cap(c, X86_FEATURE_MSR_SPEC_CTRL);
+
+ /*
+ * Clear speculation control settings from a previous kernel
+ * run, i.e., kexec.
+ */
+ rdmsrl(MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL, msr);
+ if (msr & SPEC_CTRL_MASK)
+ wrmsr (MSR_IA32_SPEC_CTRL, msr & ~SPEC_CTRL_MASK);

Yes thats a cleaner approach, except that the late microcode load will
ruin the MSR:

microcode_reload_late()
microcode_check()
get_cpu_cap()
init_speculation_control()