On Tue, 15 Aug 2023 at 01:21, Kees Cook [off-list ref] wrote:

On Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 05:18:38PM +0200, Marco Elver wrote:

quoted

[1]: "On X86-64 and AArch64 targets, this attribute changes the calling
convention of a function. The preserve_most calling convention attempts
to make the code in the caller as unintrusive as possible. This
convention behaves identically to the C calling convention on how
arguments and return values are passed, but it uses a different set of
caller/callee-saved registers. This alleviates the burden of saving and
recovering a large register set before and after the call in the caller.
If the arguments are passed in callee-saved registers, then they will be
preserved by the callee across the call. This doesn't apply for values
returned in callee-saved registers.

 * On X86-64 the callee preserves all general purpose registers, except
   for R11. R11 can be used as a scratch register. Floating-point
   registers (XMMs/YMMs) are not preserved and need to be saved by the
   caller.

 * On AArch64 the callee preserve all general purpose registers, except
   x0-X8 and X16-X18."

[1] https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AttributeReference.html#preserve-most

Introduce the attribute to compiler_types.h as __preserve_most.

Use of this attribute results in better code generation for calls to
very rarely called functions, such as error-reporting functions, or
rarely executed slow paths.

Beware that the attribute conflicts with instrumentation calls inserted
on function entry which do not use __preserve_most themselves. Notably,
function tracing which assumes the normal C calling convention for the
given architecture.  Where the attribute is supported, __preserve_most
will imply notrace. It is recommended to restrict use of the attribute
to functions that should or already disable tracing.

Note: The additional preprocessor check against architecture should not
be necessary if __has_attribute() only returns true where supported;
also see https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/1908. But until
__has_attribute() does the right thing, we also guard by known-supported
architectures to avoid build warnings on other architectures.

The attribute may be supported by a future GCC version (see
https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=110899).

Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Nick Desaulniers <redacted>
Acked-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Acked-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>

Should this go via -mm, the hardening tree, or something else? I'm happy
to carry it if no one else wants it?

v3 of this series is already in mm-unstable, and has had some -next
exposure (which was helpful in uncovering some additional issues).
Therefore, I think it's appropriate that it continues in mm and Andrew
picks up the latest v4 here.

Your official Ack would nevertheless be much appreciated!

Thanks,
-- Marco