Linux kernel mirror (for testing) git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
kernel os linux

arm64: enable CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA by default

In spite of its name, CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA is an important hardening feature
for production kernels, and distros all enable it by default in their
kernel configs. However, since enabling it used to result in more granular,
and thus less efficient kernel mappings, it is not enabled by default for
performance reasons.

However, since commit 2f39b5f91eb4 ("arm64: mm: Mark .rodata as RO"), the
various kernel segments (.text, .rodata, .init and .data) are already
mapped individually, and the only effect of setting CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA is
that the existing .text and .rodata mappings are updated late in the boot
sequence to have their read-only attributes set, which means that any
performance concerns related to enabling CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA are no longer
valid.

So from now on, make CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA default to 'y'

Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org>
Acked-by: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>
Acked-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Signed-off-by: Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>

authored by

Ard Biesheuvel and committed by
Catalin Marinas
57efac2f dbd4d7ca

+3 -3
+3 -3
arch/arm64/Kconfig.debug
··· 50 50 51 51 config DEBUG_RODATA 52 52 bool "Make kernel text and rodata read-only" 53 + default y 53 54 help 54 55 If this is set, kernel text and rodata will be made read-only. This 55 56 is to help catch accidental or malicious attempts to change the 56 - kernel's executable code. Additionally splits rodata from kernel 57 - text so it can be made explicitly non-executable. 57 + kernel's executable code. 58 58 59 - If in doubt, say Y 59 + If in doubt, say Y 60 60 61 61 config DEBUG_ALIGN_RODATA 62 62 depends on DEBUG_RODATA && ARM64_4K_PAGES