# Re: \[RFC PATCH v3 12/24\] x86/mm: Modify ptep\_set\_wrprotect and pmdp\_set\_wrprotect for \_PAGE\_DIRTY\_SW

- From: Andy Lutomirski \<luto@amacapital.net\>
- Date: 2018-08-31 01:23:21 
- List: linux-api
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-api/2018/08/5368234
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-doc/2018/08/5367691/t.md

```text


> On Aug 30, 2018, at 10:59 AM, Jann Horn [ref] wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 7:58 PM Yu-cheng Yu [ref] wrote:
>> 
>>> On Thu, 2018-08-30 at 10:33 -0700, Dave Hansen wrote:
>>>> On 08/30/2018 10:26 AM, Yu-cheng Yu wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> We don't have the guard page now, but there is a shadow stack
>>>> token
>>>> there, which cannot be used as a return address.
>>> The overall concern is that we could overflow into a page that we
>>> did
>>> not intend.  Either another actual shadow stack or something that a
>>> page
>>> that the attacker constructed, like the transient scenario Jann
>>> described.
>>> 
>> 
>> A task could go beyond the bottom of its shadow stack by doing either
>> 'ret' or 'incssp'.  If it is the 'ret' case, the token prevents it.
>> If it is the 'incssp' case, a guard page cannot prevent it entirely,
>> right?
> 
> I mean the other direction, on "call".

I still think that shadow stacks should work just like mmap and that mmap should learn to add guard pages for all non-MAP_FIXED allocations.
```