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authorJinke Han <jinkehan@didiglobal.com>2026-09-08 15:37:42 +0800
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>2026-09-17 09:48:42 +0200
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x86/kprobes: Fix crash when probing CS CALL instructionsgrafted
When using eBPF to probe CS CALL instructions within a function, a crash can be triggered. The eBPF tool probes offset 257 of the __hrtimer_run_queues() function: <__hrtimer_run_queues+249>: nopl 0x0(%rax,%rax,1) <__hrtimer_run_queues+254>: mov %r14,%rdi <__hrtimer_run_queues+257>: cs call <__x86_indirect_thunk_r12> <__hrtimer_run_queues+263>: mov %eax,%r12d <__hrtimer_run_queues+266>: xchg %ax,%ax <__hrtimer_run_queues+268>: mov %r13,%rdi Which triggers this crash: BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 00000000000f41c9 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Kdump: loaded Tainted: P RIP: 0010:__hrtimer_run_queues+0x106/0x230 Note that __hrtimer_run_queues+0x106 is __hrtimer_run_queues+262, which is at the 6th byte of the above CS CALL instruction. Since the CS CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes, the exception occurred in the middle of that call instruction. The root cause is that when using eBPF tools to probe in the middle of a function, a kprobe with INT3 is used as the underlying implementation. During single-step emulation of the original CALL instruction, int3_emulate_call() assumes that the probed CALL instruction is 5 bytes long. However, the actual CS-prefixed CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes, so it constructs an incorrect exception return address. When the CPU returns from the kprobe handler, the next instruction to be executed is at the address of the last byte of that CS CALL instruction. Coincidentally, starting from that address, the CPU fetches and decodes a completely different instruction, which ultimately triggers a kernel crash. Fix the issue by using the actual instruction length obtained from the instruction decoder when constructing the exception return address, rather than relying on the hardcoded CALL_INSN_SIZE macro. [ mingo: Refined the changelog ] Fixes: 6256e668b7af ("x86/kprobes: Use int3 instead of debug trap for single-step") Suggested-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Jinke Han <jinkehan@didiglobal.com> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> Reviewed-by: Masami Hiramatsu (Google) <mhiramat@kernel.org> Acked-by: Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@gmail.com> Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260908073742.GA10517@didi-ThinkCentre-M920t-N000
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+=======================================
+Pointer authentication in AArch64 Linux
+=======================================
+
+Author: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
+
+Date: 2017-07-19
+
+This document briefly describes the provision of pointer authentication
+functionality in AArch64 Linux.
+
+
+Architecture overview
+---------------------
+
+The ARMv8.3 Pointer Authentication extension adds primitives that can be
+used to mitigate certain classes of attack where an attacker can corrupt
+the contents of some memory (e.g. the stack).
+
+The extension uses a Pointer Authentication Code (PAC) to determine
+whether pointers have been modified unexpectedly. A PAC is derived from
+a pointer, another value (such as the stack pointer), and a secret key
+held in system registers.
+
+The extension adds instructions to insert a valid PAC into a pointer,
+and to verify/remove the PAC from a pointer. The PAC occupies a number
+of high-order bits of the pointer, which varies dependent on the
+configured virtual address size and whether pointer tagging is in use.
+
+A subset of these instructions have been allocated from the HINT
+encoding space. In the absence of the extension (or when disabled),
+these instructions behave as NOPs. Applications and libraries using
+these instructions operate correctly regardless of the presence of the
+extension.
+
+The extension provides five separate keys to generate PACs - two for
+instruction addresses (APIAKey, APIBKey), two for data addresses
+(APDAKey, APDBKey), and one for generic authentication (APGAKey).
+
+
+Basic support
+-------------
+
+When CONFIG_ARM64_PTR_AUTH is selected, and relevant HW support is
+present, the kernel will assign random key values to each process at
+exec*() time. The keys are shared by all threads within the process, and
+are preserved across fork().
+
+Presence of address authentication functionality is advertised via
+HWCAP_PACA, and generic authentication functionality via HWCAP_PACG.
+
+The number of bits that the PAC occupies in a pointer is 55 minus the
+virtual address size configured by the kernel. For example, with a
+virtual address size of 48, the PAC is 7 bits wide.
+
+When ARM64_PTR_AUTH_KERNEL is selected, the kernel will be compiled
+with HINT space pointer authentication instructions protecting
+function returns. Kernels built with this option will work on hardware
+with or without pointer authentication support.
+
+In addition to exec(), keys can also be reinitialized to random values
+using the PR_PAC_RESET_KEYS prctl. A bitmask of PR_PAC_APIAKEY,
+PR_PAC_APIBKEY, PR_PAC_APDAKEY, PR_PAC_APDBKEY and PR_PAC_APGAKEY
+specifies which keys are to be reinitialized; specifying 0 means "all
+keys".
+
+
+Debugging
+---------
+
+When CONFIG_ARM64_PTR_AUTH is selected, and HW support for address
+authentication is present, the kernel will expose the position of TTBR0
+PAC bits in the NT_ARM_PAC_MASK regset (struct user_pac_mask), which
+userspace can acquire via PTRACE_GETREGSET.
+
+The regset is exposed only when HWCAP_PACA is set. Separate masks are
+exposed for data pointers and instruction pointers, as the set of PAC
+bits can vary between the two. Note that the masks apply to TTBR0
+addresses, and are not valid to apply to TTBR1 addresses (e.g. kernel
+pointers).
+
+Additionally, when CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE is also set, the kernel
+will expose the NT_ARM_PACA_KEYS and NT_ARM_PACG_KEYS regsets (struct
+user_pac_address_keys and struct user_pac_generic_keys). These can be
+used to get and set the keys for a thread.
+
+
+Virtualization
+--------------
+
+Pointer authentication is enabled in KVM guest when each virtual cpu is
+initialised by passing flags KVM_ARM_VCPU_PTRAUTH_[ADDRESS/GENERIC] and
+requesting these two separate cpu features to be enabled. The current KVM
+guest implementation works by enabling both features together, so both
+these userspace flags are checked before enabling pointer authentication.
+The separate userspace flag will allow to have no userspace ABI changes
+if support is added in the future to allow these two features to be
+enabled independently of one another.
+
+As Arm Architecture specifies that Pointer Authentication feature is
+implemented along with the VHE feature so KVM arm64 ptrauth code relies
+on VHE mode to be present.
+
+Additionally, when these vcpu feature flags are not set then KVM will
+filter out the Pointer Authentication system key registers from
+KVM_GET/SET_REG_* ioctls and mask those features from cpufeature ID
+register. Any attempt to use the Pointer Authentication instructions will
+result in an UNDEFINED exception being injected into the guest.
+
+
+Enabling and disabling keys
+---------------------------
+
+The prctl PR_PAC_SET_ENABLED_KEYS allows the user program to control which
+PAC keys are enabled in a particular task. It takes two arguments, the
+first being a bitmask of PR_PAC_APIAKEY, PR_PAC_APIBKEY, PR_PAC_APDAKEY
+and PR_PAC_APDBKEY specifying which keys shall be affected by this prctl,
+and the second being a bitmask of the same bits specifying whether the key
+should be enabled or disabled. For example::
+
+ prctl(PR_PAC_SET_ENABLED_KEYS,
+ PR_PAC_APIAKEY | PR_PAC_APIBKEY | PR_PAC_APDAKEY | PR_PAC_APDBKEY,
+ PR_PAC_APIBKEY, 0, 0);
+
+disables all keys except the IB key.
+
+The main reason why this is useful is to enable a userspace ABI that uses PAC
+instructions to sign and authenticate function pointers and other pointers
+exposed outside of the function, while still allowing binaries conforming to
+the ABI to interoperate with legacy binaries that do not sign or authenticate
+pointers.
+
+The idea is that a dynamic loader or early startup code would issue this
+prctl very early after establishing that a process may load legacy binaries,
+but before executing any PAC instructions.
+
+For compatibility with previous kernel versions, processes start up with IA,
+IB, DA and DB enabled, and are reset to this state on exec(). Processes created
+via fork() and clone() inherit the key enabled state from the calling process.
+
+It is recommended to avoid disabling the IA key, as this has higher performance
+overhead than disabling any of the other keys.