Zircon Kernel Commandline Options

TODO(fxbug.dev/53594): move kernel_cmdline.md verbiage here

Options common to all machines

aslr.disable=<bool>

Default: false

If this option is set, the system will not use Address Space Layout Randomization.

aslr.entropy_bits=<uint8_t>

Default: 0x1e

For address spaces that use ASLR this controls the number of bits of entropy in the randomization. Higher entropy results in a sparser address space and uses more memory for page tables. Valid values range from 0-36.

kernel.entropy-mixin=<hexadecimal>

Provides entropy to be mixed into the kernel's CPRNG. The value must be a string of lowercase hexadecimal digits.

The original value will be scrubbed from memory as soon as possible and will be redacted from all diagnostic output.

kernel.jitterentropy.bs=<uint32_t>

Default: 0x40

Sets the “memory block size” parameter for jitterentropy. When jitterentropy is performing memory operations (to increase variation in CPU timing), the memory will be accessed in blocks of this size.

kernel.jitterentropy.bc=<uint32_t>

Default: 0x200

Sets the “memory block count” parameter for jitterentropy. When jitterentropy is performing memory operations (to increase variation in CPU timing), this controls how many blocks (of size kernel.jitterentropy.bs) are accessed.

kernel.jitterentropy.ml=<uint32_t>

Default: 0x20

Sets the “memory loops” parameter for jitterentropy. When jitterentropy is performing memory operations (to increase variation in CPU timing), this controls how many times the memory access routine is repeated. This parameter is only used when kernel.jitterentropy.raw is true. If the value of this parameter is 0 or if kernel.jitterentropy.raw is false, then jitterentropy chooses the number of loops is a random-ish way.

kernel.jitterentropy.ll=<uint32_t>

Default: 0x1

Sets the “LFSR loops” parameter for jitterentropy (the default is 1). When jitterentropy is performing CPU-intensive LFSR operations (to increase variation in CPU timing), this controls how many times the LFSR routine is repeated. This parameter is only used when kernel.jitterentropy.raw is true. If the value of this parameter is 0 or if kernel.jitterentropy.raw is false, then jitterentropy chooses the number of loops is a random-ish way.

kernel.jitterentropy.raw=<bool>

Default: true

When true (the default), the jitterentropy entropy collector will return raw, unprocessed samples. When false, the raw samples will be processed by jitterentropy, producing output data that looks closer to uniformly random. Note that even when set to false, the CPRNG will re-process the samples, so the processing inside of jitterentropy is somewhat redundant.

kernel.serial=[none | legacy | qemu | <type>,<base>,<irq>]

Default: none

TODO(53594)

Options available only on arm64 machines

kernel.arm64.disable_spec_mitigations=<bool>

Default: false

If set, disables all speculative execution information leak mitigations.

If unset, the per-mitigation defaults will be used.

kernel.arm64.event-stream.enable=<bool>

Default: false

When enabled, each ARM cpu will enable an event stream generator, which per-cpu sets the hidden event flag at a particular rate. This has the effect of kicking cpus out of any WFE states they may be sitting in.

kernel.arm64.event-stream.freq-hz=<uint32_t>

Default: 0x2710

If the event stream is enabled, specifies the frequency at which it will attempt to run. The resolution is limited, so the driver will only be able to pick the nearest power of 2 from the cpu timer counter.

Options available only on x86 machines

kernel.x86.disable_spec_mitigations=<bool>

Default: false

If set, disables all speculative execution information leak mitigations.

If unset, the per-mitigation defaults will be used.

kernel.x86.md_clear_on_user_return=<bool>

Default: true

MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) is a family of speculative execution information leak bugs that allow the contents of recent loads or stores to be inferred by hostile code, regardless of privilege level (CVE-2019-11091, CVE-2018-12126, CVE-2018-12130, CVE-2018-12127). For example, this could allow user code to read recent kernel loads/stores.

To avoid this bug, it is required that all microarchitectural structures that could leak data be flushed on trust level transitions. Also, it is important that trust levels do not concurrently execute on a single physical processor core.

This option controls whether microarchitectual structures are flushed on the kernel to user exit path, if possible. It may have a negative performance impact.

  • If set to true (the default), structures are flushed if the processor is vulnerable.
  • If set to false, no flush is executed on structures.

kernel.x86.pti.enable=<uint32_t>

Default: 0x2

Page table isolation configures user page tables to not have kernel text or data mapped. This may impact performance negatively. This is a mitigation for Meltdown (AKA CVE-2017-5754).

  • If set to 1, this force-enables page table isolation.
  • If set to 0, this force-disables page table isolation. This may be insecure.
  • If set to 2 or unset (the default), this enables page table isolation on CPUs vulnerable to Meltdown.

TODO(joshuaseaton): make this an enum instead of using magic integers.

kernel.x86.spec_store_bypass_disable=<bool>

Default: false

Spec-store-bypass (Spectre V4) is a speculative execution information leak vulnerability that affects many Intel and AMD x86 CPUs. It targets memory disambiguation hardware to infer the contents of recent stores. The attack only affects same-privilege-level, intra-process data.

This command line option controls whether a mitigation is enabled. The mitigation has negative performance impacts.

  • If true, the mitigation is enabled on CPUs that need it.
  • If false (the default), the mitigation is not enabled.

TODO: put something here