Why a segfault instead of privilege instruction error? - linux

Question

I am trying to execute the privileged instruction rdmsr in user mode, and I expect to get some kind of privilege error, but I get a segfault instead. I have checked the asm and I am loading 0x186 into ecx, which is supposed to be PERFEVTSEL0, based on the manual, page 1171.
What is the cause of the segfault, and how can I modify the code below to fix it?
I want to resolve this before hacking a kernel module, because I don't want this segfault to blow up my kernel.
Update: I am running on Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X3470.
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
#include <sched.h>
#include <assert.h>
uint64_t
read_msr(int ecx)
{
unsigned int a, d;
__asm __volatile("rdmsr" : "=a"(a), "=d"(d) : "c"(ecx));
return ((uint64_t)a) | (((uint64_t)d) << 32);
}
int main(int ac, char **av)
{
uint64_t start, end;
cpu_set_t cpuset;
unsigned int c = 0x186;
int i = 0;
CPU_ZERO(&cpuset);
CPU_SET(i, &cpuset);
assert(sched_setaffinity(0, sizeof(cpuset), &cpuset) == 0);
printf("%lu\n", read_msr(c));
return 0;
}

Answer 1

The question I will try to answer: Why does the above code cause SIGSEGV instead of SIGILL, though the code has no memory error, but an illegal instruction (a privileged instruction called from non-privileged user pace)?
I would expect to get a SIGILL with si_code ILL_PRVOPC instead of a segfault, too. Your question is currently 3 years old and today, I stumbled upon the same behavior. I am disappointed too :-(
What is the cause of the segfault
The cause seems to be that the Linux kernel code decides to send SIGSEGV. Here is the responsible function:
http://elixir.free-electrons.com/linux/v4.9/source/arch/x86/kernel/traps.c#L487
Have a look at the last line of the function.
In your follow up question, you got a list of other assembly instructions which get propagated as SIGSEGV to userspace though they are actually general protection faults. I found your question because I triggered the behavior with cli.
and how can I modify the code below to fix it?
As of Linux kernel 4.9, I'm not aware of any reliable way to distinguish between a memory error (what I would expect to be a SIGSEGV) and a privileged instruction error from userspace.
There may be very hacky and unportable way to distibguish these cases. When a privileged instruction causes a SIGSEGV, the siginfo_t si_code is set to a value which is not directly listed in the SIGSEGV section of man 2 sigaction. The documented values are SEGV_MAPERR, SEGV_ACCERR, SEGV_PKUERR, but I get SI_KERNEL (0x80) on my system. According to the man page, SI_KERNEL is a code "which can be placed in si_code for any signal". In strace, you see SIGSEGV {si_signo=SIGSEGV, si_code=SI_KERNEL, si_addr=0}. The responsible kernel code is here.
It would also be possible to grep dmesg for this string.
Please, never ever use those two methods to distinguish between GPF and memory error on a production system.
Specific solution for your code: Just don't run rdmsr from user space. But this answer is really unsatisfying if you are looking for a generic way to figure out why a program received a SIGSEGV.