[Lldb-commits] [lldb] [lldb][Docs] Add Guarded Control Stack to AArch64 Linux page (PR #117860)

David Spickett via lldb-commits lldb-commits at lists.llvm.org
Wed Dec 11 05:58:41 PST 2024


================
@@ -229,3 +229,54 @@ bytes.
 
 `zt0`'s value and whether it is active or not will be saved prior to
 expression evaluation and restored afterwards.
+
+## Guarded Control Stack Extension (GCS)
+
+GCS support includes the following new registers:
+
+* `gcs_features_enabled`
+* `gcs_features_locked`
+* `gcspr_el0`
+
+These map to the registers ptrace provides. The first two have had a `gcs_`
+prefix added as their names are too generic without it.
+
+When the GCS is enabled the kernel allocates a memory region for it. This region
+has a special attribute that LLDB will detect and presents like this:
+```
+  (lldb) memory region --all
+  <...>
+  [0x0000fffff7a00000-0x0000fffff7e00000) rw-
+  shadow stack: yes
+  [0x0000fffff7e00000-0x0000fffff7e10000) ---
+```
+
+`shadow stack` is a generic term used in the kernel for secure stack
+extensions like GCS.
+
+### Expression Evaluation
+
+To execute an expression, LLDB must push the return address of the expression
----------------
DavidSpickett wrote:

Clarified that this only happens if GCS is enabled, not generally on any GCS aware system (since there's no stack memory for us to write to when it's disabled).

https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/pull/117860


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