On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 03:56:02PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:

On Tue,  9 Mar 2021 13:42:55 -0800 Kees Cook [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Choosing the initial state of static branches changes the assembly layout
(if the condition is expected to be likely, inline, or unlikely, out of
line via a jump). The _TRUE/_FALSE defines for CONFIG_INIT_ON_*_DEFAULT_ON
were accidentally removed. These need to stay so that the CONFIG controls
the pessimization of the resulting static branch NOP/JMP locations.

Changelog doesn't really explain why anyone would want to apply this
patch.  This is especially important for -stable patches.

IOW, what is the user visible effect of the bug?

Yeah, that's a good point, and in writing more details I decided this
wasn't actually worth a stable patch, and should just get folded into
later patches.

Thanks for the sanity-check!

-- 
Kees Cook