How do I...
Kconfig is a build time configuration system, combining inherent knowledge, the capabilities of the toolchain, and explicit user choice to form a configuration of a build of Xen.
A file, by default
.config
, is produced by the build identifying the configuration used. Kconfig symbols all start withCONFIG_
, and come in a variety of types including strings, integers and booleans. Booleans are the most common, and when active are expressed with...=y
. e.g.:xen.git/xen$ grep CONFIG_FOO .config CONFIG_FOO_BOOLEAN=y CONFIG_FOO_STRING="lorem ipsum" CONFIG_FOO_INTEGER=42
Symbols which are either absent, or expressed as
... is not set
are disabled. e.g.:xen.git/xen$ grep CONFIG_BAR .config # CONFIG_BAR is not set
Builds of Xen configured with
CONFIG_HYPFS_CONFIG=y
embed their own.config
at build time, and can provide it to thecontrol domain
upon requested. e.g.:[root@host ~]# xenhypfs cat /buildinfo/config | grep -e FOO -e BAR CONFIG_FOO=y # CONFIG_BAR is not set
Control-flow Enforcement Technology support was added to Xen 4.14. It is build time conditional, dependent on both having a new-enough toolchain and an explicit Kconfig option, and also requires capable hardware. See
CET
.For CET-SS, Shadow Stacks, the minimum toolchain requirements are
binutils >= 2.29
orLLVM >= 6
. No specific compiler support is required. Check forCONFIG_XEN_SHSTK
being active.For CET-IBT, Indirect Branch Tracking, the minimum toolchain requirements are
GCC >= 9
andbinutils >= 2.29
. Xen relies on a compiler feature which is specific to GCC at the time of writing. Check forCONFIG_XEN_IBT
being active.If a capable Xen is booted on capable hardware, and CET is not disabled by command line option or errata, Xen will print some details early on boot about which CET facilities have been turned on:
... (XEN) CPU Vendor: Intel, Family 6 (0x6), Model 143 (0x8f), Stepping 8 (raw 000806f8) (XEN) Enabling Supervisor Shadow Stacks (XEN) Enabling Indirect Branch Tracking (XEN) - IBT disabled in UEFI Runtime Services (XEN) EFI RAM map: ...
This can be obtained from the control domain with
xl dmesg
, but remember to confirm that the console ring hasn't wrapped.