Affected: Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

powerpc/64s: Don't use DSISR for SLB faults

Since commit 46ddcb3950a2 ("powerpc/mm: Show if a bad page fault on data is read or write.") we use page_fault_is_write(regs->dsisr) in __bad_page_fault() to determine if the fault is for a read or write, and change the message printed accordingly.

But SLB faults, aka Data Segment Interrupts, don't set DSISR (Data Storage Interrupt Status Register) to a useful value. All ISA versions from v2.03 through v3.1 specify that the Data Segment Interrupt sets DSISR "to an undefined value". As far as I can see there's no mention of SLB faults setting DSISR in any BookIV content either.

This manifests as accesses that should be a read being incorrectly reported as writes, for example, using the xmon "dump" command:

0:mon> d 0x5deadbeef0000000 5deadbeef0000000 [359526.415354][ C6] BUG: Unable to handle kernel data access on write at 0x5deadbeef0000000 [359526.415611][ C6] Faulting instruction address: 0xc00000000010a300 cpu 0x6: Vector: 380 (Data SLB Access) at [c00000000ffbf400] pc: c00000000010a300: mread+0x90/0x190

If we disassemble the PC, we see a load instruction:

0:mon> di c00000000010a300 c00000000010a300 89490000 lbz r10,0(r9)

We can also see in exceptions-64s.S that the data_access_slb block doesn't set IDSISR=1, which means it doesn't load DSISR into pt_regs. So the value we're using to determine if the fault is a read/wri…