kernel: preserve SSE/FPU (XMM) state across the syscall/interrupt boundary

The kernel enabled SSE at boot and both kernel and userspace keep live values in
XMM (LLVM emits movdqu/movaps for >=16-byte struct copies, plus floats and SIMD),
yet the kernel never saved the SSE/FPU register file anywhere — not across
switch_context, not across the syscall boundary, not across interrupts. Any value
the compiler parked in an XMM register across a kernel entry could be silently
clobbered by kernel code, or by whatever the scheduler ran while the task blocked:
a whole-kernel, timing-dependent data-corruption bug.

It was the real root cause of the "device_enumerate corruption" Heisenbug: the
display service read garbage framebuffer geometry (height=0) because findDisplay
held the 16-byte .display field live in xmm0 across the claim/mmio_map syscalls,
and a timer preemption to the busy device-manager clobbered it. The tell that it
was register-only: memory always read correct, and the bug vanished whenever an
added syscall spilled the value to the stack.

Fix: fxsave/fxrstor the register file in the asm stubs (isr_common and
syscall_entry), right after pushing the GP trap frame — before any Zig kernel code
can touch XMM — and right before the pops. rbx bridges the exact rsp across the
call to interruptDispatch: it is callee-saved, so it survives even a blocking
dispatch that context-switches away and back, and `and $-16,%rsp; sub $512,%rsp`
gives fxsave its 16-byte-aligned scratch on the kernel stack. Context-switch-time
save/restore alone is not enough — kernel code between the interrupt and switchTo
already clobbers XMM.

The commit-58927ed Gop.init workaround (copy scalar geometry fields rather than the
whole descriptor by value) is now redundant but harmless; left in place. Deferred:
a fresh task inherits the previous task's XMM (minor info-leak / nondeterminism),
and the fxsave runs on every interrupt including ring0->ring0.
This commit is contained in:
Daniel Samson 2026-07-14 18:39:23 +01:00
parent 24c49f56e1
commit 65bb04d890
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1 changed files with 24 additions and 0 deletions

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@ -205,7 +205,17 @@ syscall_entry:
push %r14
push %r15
mov %rsp, %rdi # trap-frame pointer
# Preserve the caller's SSE/x87 register file across the syscall see the same
# dance in isr_common. Without it a syscall (or a task the scheduler runs while
# this one blocks) clobbers the caller's live XMM values, which the compiler is
# free to hold across a syscall (its wrappers only clobber rcx/r11/memory).
mov %rsp, %rbx
and $-16, %rsp
sub $512, %rsp
fxsave (%rsp)
call interruptDispatch
fxrstor (%rsp)
mov %rbx, %rsp # back to the trap frame (undo the fxsave scratch)
pop %r15
pop %r14
pop %r13
@ -357,7 +367,21 @@ isr_common:
push %r14
push %r15
mov %rsp, %rdi # first argument: pointer to the trap frame
# Save the interrupted SSE/x87 register file before any kernel code runs, and
# restore it on the way out the kernel and user both keep live values in XMM
# (a 16-byte struct copy is a movdqu), and the kernel never otherwise preserves
# them, so an interrupt handler (and whatever the scheduler runs in its place)
# would silently clobber the interrupted task's vector registers. rbx bridges the
# exact rsp across the call: it is callee-saved (interruptDispatch and every
# context switch preserve it), so it survives even a blocking dispatch, and the
# `and`/`sub` gives fxsave its required 16-byte-aligned scratch on the kernel stack.
mov %rsp, %rbx
and $-16, %rsp
sub $512, %rsp
fxsave (%rsp)
call interruptDispatch
fxrstor (%rsp)
mov %rbx, %rsp # back to the trap frame (undo the fxsave scratch)
pop %r15
pop %r14
pop %r13