Re: Differing PAC behavior between Qemu and Arm FVP

[Richard Henderson]

> The scenario: Application signs pointer 0xdeadbeef using the pacda
> instruction to obtain a new pointer 0xXYdeadbeef.  Later, the application
> wants to generate a new PAC signature for 0xdeadbeef, but uses 0xXYdeadbeef
> as the address for the pacda instruction to generate pointer 0xABdeadbeef.
> Finally, the application wants to authenticate using the autda instruction
> using 0xABdeadbeef and the modifier used to generate that pointer.>
> Qemu behavior: The autda instruction succeeds and 0xdeadbeef is returned.
> 
> FVP behavior: The autda instruction fails, and an invalid pointer is
> returned.  In order for the autda instruction to succeed, the pointer
> provided to the pacda instruction must have the upper bits set to zero.
> 
> Is this a bug, or are we not very concerned about corner cases like these?

Well, actually, if you haven't already gotten an invalid pointer out of step
two (the second pacda) then *that* is a bug.  And an invalid pointer should not
succeed the autda.

So, yes, this does sound like a bug.

I will see if I can create a test case for this, but if you already have one,
that would also be helpful.


r~