]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/kernel/stable.git/commit
x86/its: Enable Indirect Target Selection mitigation
authorPawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>
Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:46:54 +0000 (17:46 -0700)
committerGreg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Thu, 17 Jul 2025 16:27:55 +0000 (18:27 +0200)
commit116a42f01f7da1c7b032bf7ceded132c671f8e6f
treeae3b064c94e14dd094fd682f830eb70721e9e0a1
parent07d828c0845651a7822be9535e91c095474bd140
x86/its: Enable Indirect Target Selection mitigation

commit f4818881c47fd91fcb6d62373c57c7844e3de1c0 upstream.

Indirect Target Selection (ITS) is a bug in some pre-ADL Intel CPUs with
eIBRS. It affects prediction of indirect branch and RETs in the
lower half of cacheline. Due to ITS such branches may get wrongly predicted
to a target of (direct or indirect) branch that is located in the upper
half of the cacheline.

Scope of impact
===============

Guest/host isolation
--------------------
When eIBRS is used for guest/host isolation, the indirect branches in the
VMM may still be predicted with targets corresponding to branches in the
guest.

Intra-mode
----------
cBPF or other native gadgets can be used for intra-mode training and
disclosure using ITS.

User/kernel isolation
---------------------
When eIBRS is enabled user/kernel isolation is not impacted.

Indirect Branch Prediction Barrier (IBPB)
-----------------------------------------
After an IBPB, indirect branches may be predicted with targets
corresponding to direct branches which were executed prior to IBPB. This is
mitigated by a microcode update.

Add cmdline parameter indirect_target_selection=off|on|force to control the
mitigation to relocate the affected branches to an ITS-safe thunk i.e.
located in the upper half of cacheline. Also add the sysfs reporting.

When retpoline mitigation is deployed, ITS safe-thunks are not needed,
because retpoline sequence is already ITS-safe. Similarly, when call depth
tracking (CDT) mitigation is deployed (retbleed=stuff), ITS safe return
thunk is not used, as CDT prevents RSB-underflow.

To not overcomplicate things, ITS mitigation is not supported with
spectre-v2 lfence;jmp mitigation. Moreover, it is less practical to deploy
lfence;jmp mitigation on ITS affected parts anyways.

Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Alexandre Chartre <alexandre.chartre@oracle.com>
Signed-off-by: Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Documentation/ABI/testing/sysfs-devices-system-cpu
Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt
arch/x86/kernel/cpu/bugs.c
drivers/base/cpu.c
include/linux/cpu.h