bpf, arm64, powerpc: Add bpf_jit_bypass_spec_v1/v4()
JITs can set bpf_jit_bypass_spec_v1/v4() if they want the verifier to
skip analysis/patching for the respective vulnerability. For v4, this
will reduce the number of barriers the verifier inserts. For v1, it
allows more programs to be accepted.
The primary motivation for this is to not regress unpriv BPF's
performance on ARM64 in a future commit where BPF_NOSPEC is also used
against Spectre v1.
This has the user-visible change that v1-induced rejections on
non-vulnerable PowerPC CPUs are avoided.
For now, this does not change the semantics of BPF_NOSPEC. It is still a
v4-only barrier and must not be implemented if bypass_spec_v4 is always
true for the arch. Changing it to a v1 AND v4-barrier is done in a
future commit.
As an alternative to bypass_spec_v1/v4, one could introduce NOSPEC_V1
AND NOSPEC_V4 instructions and allow backends to skip their lowering as
suggested by commit f5e81d111750 ("bpf: Introduce BPF nospec instruction
for mitigating Spectre v4"). Adding bpf_jit_bypass_spec_v1/v4() was
found to be preferable for the following reason:
* bypass_spec_v1/v4 benefits non-vulnerable CPUs: Always performing the
same analysis (not taking into account whether the current CPU is
vulnerable), needlessly restricts users of CPUs that are not
vulnerable. The only use case for this would be portability-testing,
but this can later be added easily when needed by allowing users to
force bypass_spec_v1/v4 to false.
* Portability is still acceptable: Directly disabling the analysis
instead of skipping the lowering of BPF_NOSPEC(_V1/V4) might allow
programs on non-vulnerable CPUs to be accepted while the program will
be rejected on vulnerable CPUs. With the fallback to speculation
barriers for Spectre v1 implemented in a future commit, this will only
affect programs that do variable stack-accesses or are very complex.
For PowerPC, the SEC_FTR checking in bpf_jit_bypass_spec_v4() is based
on the check that was previously located in the BPF_NOSPEC case.
For LoongArch, it would likely be safe to set both
bpf_jit_bypass_spec_v1() and _v4() according to
commit a6f6a95f2580 ("LoongArch, bpf: Fix jit to skip speculation
barrier opcode"). This is omitted here as I am unable to do any testing
for LoongArch.
Hari's ack concerns the PowerPC part only.
Signed-off-by: Luis Gerhorst <luis.gerhorst@fau.de>
Acked-by: Hari Bathini <hbathini@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Henriette Herzog <henriette.herzog@rub.de>
Cc: Maximilian Ott <ott@cs.fau.de>
Cc: Milan Stephan <milan.stephan@fau.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250603211318.337474-1-luis.gerhorst@fau.de
Signed-off-by: Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>
4 files changed
