In general users, don't have the necessary information to determine
whether late loading of a new microcode version is safe and does not
modify anything which the currently running kernel uses already, e.g.
removal of CPUID bits or behavioural changes of MSRs.
To address this issue, Intel has added a "minimum required version"
field to a previously reserved field in the microcode header. Microcode
updates should only be applied if the current microcode version is equal
to, or greater than this minimum required version.
Thomas made some suggestions on how meta-data in the microcode file could
provide Linux with information to decide if the new microcode is suitable
candidate for late loading. But even the "simpler" option requires a lot of
metadata and corresponding kernel code to parse it, so the final suggestion
was to add the 'minimum required version' field in the header.
When microcode changes visible features, microcode will set the minimum
required version to its own revision which prevents late loading.
Old microcode blobs have the minimum revision field always set to 0, which
indicates that there is no information and the kernel considers it
unsafe.
This is a pure OS software mechanism. The hardware/firmware ignores this
header field.
For early loading there is no restriction because OS visible features
are enumerated after the early load and therefore a change has no
effect.
The check is always enabled, but by default not enforced. It can be
enforced via Kconfig or kernel command line.
If enforced, the kernel refuses to late load microcode with a minimum
required version field which is zero or when the currently loaded
microcode revision is smaller than the minimum required revision.
If not enforced the load happens independent of the revision check to
stay compatible with the existing behaviour, but it influences the
decision whether the kernel is tainted or not. If the check signals that
the late load is safe, then the kernel is not tainted.
Early loading is not affected by this.
[ tglx: Massaged changelog and fixed up the implementation ]
Suggested-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231002115903.776467264@linutronix.de
Applying microcode late can be fatal for the running kernel when the
update changes functionality which is in use already in a non-compatible
way, e.g. by removing a CPUID bit.
There is no way for admins which do not have access to the vendors deep
technical support to decide whether late loading of such a microcode is
safe or not.
Intel has added a new field to the microcode header which tells the
minimal microcode revision which is required to be active in the CPU in
order to be safe.
Provide infrastructure for handling this in the core code and a command
line switch which allows to enforce it.
If the update is considered safe the kernel is not tainted and the annoying
warning message not emitted. If it's enforced and the currently loaded
microcode revision is not safe for late loading then the load is aborted.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231017211724.079611170@linutronix.de
stop_machine() does not prevent the spin-waiting sibling from handling
an NMI, which is obviously violating the whole concept of rendezvous.
Implement a static branch right in the beginning of the NMI handler
which is nopped out except when enabled by the late loading mechanism.
The late loader enables the static branch before stop_machine() is
invoked. Each CPU has an nmi_enable in its control structure which
indicates whether the CPU should go into the update routine.
This is required to bridge the gap between enabling the branch and
actually being at the point where it is required to enter the loader
wait loop.
Each CPU which arrives in the stopper thread function sets that flag and
issues a self NMI right after that. If the NMI function sees the flag
clear, it returns. If it's set it clears the flag and enters the
rendezvous.
This is safe against a real NMI which hits in between setting the flag
and sending the NMI to itself. The real NMI will be swallowed by the
microcode update and the self NMI will then let stuff continue.
Otherwise this would end up with a spurious NMI.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231002115903.489900814@linutronix.de
Nothing needs struct ucode_cpu_info. Make it take struct cpu_signature,
let it return a boolean and simplify the implementation. Rename it now
that the silly name clash with collect_cpu_info() is gone.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231017211722.851573238@linutronix.de
There are situations where the late microcode is loaded into memory but
is not applied:
1) The rendezvous fails
2) The microcode is rejected by the CPUs
If any of this happens then the pointer which was updated at firmware
load time is stale and subsequent CPU hotplug operations either fail to
update or create inconsistent microcode state.
Save the loaded microcode in a separate pointer before the late load is
attempted and when successful, update the hotplug pointer accordingly
via a new microcode_ops callback.
Remove the pointless fallback in the loader to a microcode pointer which
is never populated.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231002115902.505491309@linutronix.de
The early loading code is overly complicated:
- It scans the builtin/initrd for microcode not only on the BSP, but also
on all APs during early boot and then later in the boot process it
scans again to duplicate and save the microcode before initrd goes
away.
That's a pointless exercise because this can be simply done before
bringing up the APs when the memory allocator is up and running.
- Saving the microcode from within the scan loop is completely
non-obvious and a left over of the microcode cache.
This can be done at the call site now which makes it obvious.
Rework the code so that only the BSP scans the builtin/initrd microcode
once during early boot and save it away in an early initcall for later
use.
[ bp: Test and fold in a fix from tglx ontop which handles the need to
distinguish what save_microcode() does depending on when it is
called:
- when on the BSP during early load, it needs to find a newer
revision than the one currently loaded on the BSP
- later, before SMP init, it still runs on the BSP and gets the BSP
revision just loaded and uses that revision to know which patch
to save for the APs. For that it needs to find the exact one as
on the BSP.
]
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231017211722.629085215@linutronix.de
Mixed steppings aren't supported on Intel CPUs. Only one microcode patch
is required for the entire system. The caching of microcode blobs which
match the family and model is therefore pointless and in fact is
dysfunctional as CPU hotplug updates use only a single microcode blob,
i.e. the one where *intel_ucode_patch points to.
Remove the microcode cache and make it an AMD local feature.
[ tglx:
- save only at the end. Otherwise random microcode ends up in the
pointer for early loading
- free the ucode patch pointer in save_microcode_patch() only
after kmemdup() has succeeded, as reported by Andrew Cooper ]
Originally-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231017211722.404362809@linutronix.de
32-bit loads microcode before paging is enabled. The commit which
introduced that has zero justification in the changelog. The cover
letter has slightly more content, but it does not give any technical
justification either:
"The problem in current microcode loading method is that we load a
microcode way, way too late; ideally we should load it before turning
paging on. This may only be practical on 32 bits since we can't get
to 64-bit mode without paging on, but we should still do it as early
as at all possible."
Handwaving word salad with zero technical content.
Someone claimed in an offlist conversation that this is required for
curing the ATOM erratum AAE44/AAF40/AAG38/AAH41. That erratum requires
an microcode update in order to make the usage of PSE safe. But during
early boot, PSE is completely irrelevant and it is evaluated way later.
Neither is it relevant for the AP on single core HT enabled CPUs as the
microcode loading on the AP is not doing anything.
On dual core CPUs there is a theoretical problem if a split of an
executable large page between enabling paging including PSE and loading
the microcode happens. But that's only theoretical, it's practically
irrelevant because the affected dual core CPUs are 64bit enabled and
therefore have paging and PSE enabled before loading the microcode on
the second core. So why would it work on 64-bit but not on 32-bit?
The erratum:
"AAG38 Code Fetch May Occur to Incorrect Address After a Large Page is
Split Into 4-Kbyte Pages
Problem: If software clears the PS (page size) bit in a present PDE
(page directory entry), that will cause linear addresses mapped through
this PDE to use 4-KByte pages instead of using a large page after old
TLB entries are invalidated. Due to this erratum, if a code fetch uses
this PDE before the TLB entry for the large page is invalidated then it
may fetch from a different physical address than specified by either the
old large page translation or the new 4-KByte page translation. This
erratum may also cause speculative code fetches from incorrect addresses."
The practical relevance for this is exactly zero because there is no
splitting of large text pages during early boot-time, i.e. between paging
enable and microcode loading, and neither during CPU hotplug.
IOW, this load microcode before paging enable is yet another voodoo
programming solution in search of a problem. What's worse is that it causes
at least two serious problems:
1) When stackprotector is enabled, the microcode loader code has the
stackprotector mechanics enabled. The read from the per CPU variable
__stack_chk_guard is always accessing the virtual address either
directly on UP or via %fs on SMP. In physical address mode this
results in an access to memory above 3GB. So this works by chance as
the hardware returns the same value when there is no RAM at this
physical address. When there is RAM populated above 3G then the read
is by chance the same as nothing changes that memory during the very
early boot stage. That's not necessarily true during runtime CPU
hotplug.
2) When function tracing is enabled, the relevant microcode loader
functions and the functions invoked from there will call into the
tracing code and evaluate global and per CPU variables in physical
address mode. What could potentially go wrong?
Cure this and move the microcode loading after the early paging enable, use
the new temporary initrd mapping and remove the gunk in the microcode
loader which is required to handle physical address mode.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20231017211722.348298216@linutronix.de
There is no reason to expose all of this globally. Move everything which is
not required outside of the microcode specific code to local header files
and into the respective source files.
No functional change.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230812195727.952876381@linutronix.de
There is really no point to have that in the CPUID evaluation code. Move it
into the Intel-specific microcode handling along with the data
structures, defines and helpers required by it. The exports need to stay
for IFS.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230812195727.719202319@linutronix.de
Make early loading message match late loading message and print both old
and new revisions.
This is helpful to know what the BIOS loaded revision is before an early
update.
Cache the early BIOS revision before the microcode update and have
print_ucode_info() print both the old and new revision in the same
format as microcode_reload_late().
[ bp: Massage, remove useless comment. ]
Signed-off-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230120161923.118882-6-ashok.raj@intel.com
print_ucode_info() takes a struct ucode_cpu_info pointer as parameter.
Its sole purpose is to print the microcode revision.
The only available ucode_cpu_info always describes the currently loaded
microcode revision. After a microcode update is successful, this is the
new revision, or on failure it is the original revision.
In preparation for future changes, replace the struct ucode_cpu_info
pointer parameter with a plain integer which contains the revision
number and adjust the call sites accordingly.
No functional change.
[ bp:
- Fix + cleanup commit message.
- Revert arbitrary, unrelated change.
]
Signed-off-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230120161923.118882-5-ashok.raj@intel.com
Pull x86 microcode and IFS updates from Borislav Petkov:
"The IFS (In-Field Scan) stuff goes through tip because the IFS driver
uses the same structures and similar functionality as the microcode
loader and it made sense to route it all through this branch so that
there are no conflicts.
- Add support for multiple testing sequences to the Intel In-Field
Scan driver in order to be able to run multiple different test
patterns. Rework things and remove the BROKEN dependency so that
the driver can be enabled (Jithu Joseph)
- Remove the subsys interface usage in the microcode loader because
it is not really needed
- A couple of smaller fixes and cleanups"
* tag 'x86_microcode_for_v6.2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip: (24 commits)
x86/microcode/intel: Do not retry microcode reloading on the APs
x86/microcode/intel: Do not print microcode revision and processor flags
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Add missing kernel-doc entry
Revert "platform/x86/intel/ifs: Mark as BROKEN"
Documentation/ABI: Update IFS ABI doc
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Add current_batch sysfs entry
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Remove reload sysfs entry
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Add metadata validation
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Use generic microcode headers and functions
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Add metadata support
x86/microcode/intel: Use a reserved field for metasize
x86/microcode/intel: Add hdr_type to intel_microcode_sanity_check()
x86/microcode/intel: Reuse microcode_sanity_check()
x86/microcode/intel: Use appropriate type in microcode_sanity_check()
x86/microcode/intel: Reuse find_matching_signature()
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Remove memory allocation from load path
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Remove image loading during init
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Return a more appropriate error code
platform/x86/intel/ifs: Remove unused selection
x86/microcode: Drop struct ucode_cpu_info.valid
...
The retries in load_ucode_intel_ap() were in place to support systems
with mixed steppings. Mixed steppings are no longer supported and there is
only one microcode image at a time. Any retries will simply reattempt to
apply the same image over and over without making progress.
[ bp: Zap the circumstantial reasoning from the commit message. ]
Fixes: 06b8534cb7 ("x86/microcode: Rework microcode loading")
Signed-off-by: Ashok Raj <ashok.raj@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221129210832.107850-3-ashok.raj@intel.com
