x86/tsx: Add config options to set tsx=on|off|auto
There is a general consensus that TSX usage is not largely spread while
the history shows there is a non trivial space for side channel attacks
possible. Therefore the tsx is disabled by default even on platforms
that might have a safe implementation of TSX according to the current
knowledge. This is a fair trade off to make.
There are, however, workloads that really do benefit from using TSX and
updating to a newer kernel with TSX disabled might introduce a
noticeable regressions. This would be especially a problem for Linux
distributions which will provide TAA mitigations.
Introduce config options X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_OFF, X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_ON
and X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_AUTO to control the TSX feature. The config
setting can be overridden by the tsx cmdline options.
[ bp: Text cleanups from Josh. ]
Suggested-by: Borislav Petkov <bpetkov@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Signed-off-by: Pawan Gupta <pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Reviewed-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>
diff --git a/arch/x86/Kconfig b/arch/x86/Kconfig
index d6e1faa..8ef8513 100644
--- a/arch/x86/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/x86/Kconfig
@@ -1940,6 +1940,51 @@
If unsure, say y.
+choice
+ prompt "TSX enable mode"
+ depends on CPU_SUP_INTEL
+ default X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_OFF
+ help
+ Intel's TSX (Transactional Synchronization Extensions) feature
+ allows to optimize locking protocols through lock elision which
+ can lead to a noticeable performance boost.
+
+ On the other hand it has been shown that TSX can be exploited
+ to form side channel attacks (e.g. TAA) and chances are there
+ will be more of those attacks discovered in the future.
+
+ Therefore TSX is not enabled by default (aka tsx=off). An admin
+ might override this decision by tsx=on the command line parameter.
+ Even with TSX enabled, the kernel will attempt to enable the best
+ possible TAA mitigation setting depending on the microcode available
+ for the particular machine.
+
+ This option allows to set the default tsx mode between tsx=on, =off
+ and =auto. See Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt for more
+ details.
+
+ Say off if not sure, auto if TSX is in use but it should be used on safe
+ platforms or on if TSX is in use and the security aspect of tsx is not
+ relevant.
+
+config X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_OFF
+ bool "off"
+ help
+ TSX is disabled if possible - equals to tsx=off command line parameter.
+
+config X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_ON
+ bool "on"
+ help
+ TSX is always enabled on TSX capable HW - equals the tsx=on command
+ line parameter.
+
+config X86_INTEL_TSX_MODE_AUTO
+ bool "auto"
+ help
+ TSX is enabled on TSX capable HW that is believed to be safe against
+ side channel attacks- equals the tsx=auto command line parameter.
+endchoice
+
config EFI
bool "EFI runtime service support"
depends on ACPI