references, for those references whose compile-time normal intentions are
usurped at runtime due to buffer overflow or underflow.
+You can tell if your CPU supports MPX by looking in /proc/cpuinfo:
+
+ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep ' mpx '
+
For more information, please refer to Intel(R) Architecture Instruction
Set Extensions Programming Reference, Chapter 9: Intel(R) Memory Protection
Extensions.
-Note: Currently no hardware with MPX ISA is available but it is always
+Note: As of December 2014, no hardware with MPX is available but it is
possible to use SDE (Intel(R) Software Development Emulator) instead, which
can be downloaded from
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-software-development-emulator
def_bool y
depends on INTEL_IOMMU && ACPI
-config X86_INTEL_MPX
- def_bool y
- depends on CPU_SUP_INTEL
-
config X86_32_SMP
def_bool y
depends on X86_32 && SMP
If unsure, say Y.
+config X86_INTEL_MPX
+ prompt "Intel MPX (Memory Protection Extensions)"
+ def_bool n
+ depends on CPU_SUP_INTEL
+ ---help---
+ MPX provides hardware features that can be used in
+ conjunction with compiler-instrumented code to check
+ memory references. It is designed to detect buffer
+ overflow or underflow bugs.
+
+ This option enables running applications which are
+ instrumented or otherwise use MPX. It does not use MPX
+ itself inside the kernel or to protect the kernel
+ against bad memory references.
+
+ Enabling this option will make the kernel larger:
+ ~8k of kernel text and 36 bytes of data on a 64-bit
+ defconfig. It adds a long to the 'mm_struct' which
+ will increase the kernel memory overhead of each
+ process and adds some branches to paths used during
+ exec() and munmap().
+
+ For details, see Documentation/x86/intel_mpx.txt
+
+ If unsure, say N.
+
config EFI
bool "EFI runtime service support"
depends on ACPI