Linux and Linux Foundation
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LWN ☛ Controlling shadow-stack allocation in clone3()
User-space shadow stacks are a relatively new feature in Linux; support was only added for 6.6, and is limited to the x86 architecture. As support for other architectures (including arm64 and RISC-V) approaches readiness, though, more thought is going into the API for this feature. As a recent discussion on the integration of shadow stacks with the clone3() system call shows, there are still some details to be worked out.
A shadow stack is a copy of the current call stack that contains only return addresses; it is maintained by the CPU. While user-space code can access (and even modify) the shadow stack, that access is limited in a number of ways by the hardware. When a shadow stack is enabled, every function call results in the return address being pushed onto both the regular and the shadow stacks. Whenever a function returns, the return address on the regular stack is compared to the copy on the shadow stack; if the two don't match, the processor will trap and (normally) the affected process will be killed. This feature is meant to provide a defense against attacks based on overrunning stack-based variables, including return-oriented programming (ROP) attacks.
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Linux Foundation
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PR Newswire ☛ Linux Foundation Connectivity Grows Portfolio with ISP Toolbox and Magma Projects [Ed: No connection to Linux, as usual...]
LF Connectivity (LFC), a Linux Foundation open source project focused on advancing technologies to accelerate emerging network and connectivity applications, today announced Magma and ISP Toolbox have become LFC sub-projects.
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What the heck happened to ONF?
After 12 years of work, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is no more. At the end of last week, the group announced it is transferring its portfolio of projects – which include work on broadband networks, 5G mobile networking and the P4 architecture for cloud networking – to the Linux Foundation (LF). The surprise move raised two key questions: what the heck happened to ONF? And what happens now?
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LWN ☛ LSFMM+BPF 2024 call for proposals
The 2024 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit will be held May 13 to 15 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. The call for proposals has already gone out, with a deadline of March 1. ""LSF/MM/BPF is an invitation-only technical workshop to map out improvements to the Linux storage, filesystem, BPF, and memory management subsystems that will make their way into the mainline kernel within the coming years.""
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