AMD Branch Sampling Support Being Worked On For Linux

[dev_null]

Nice, it means reverse debugging can be better and faster

[Developer12]

So, another source of data for side-channel attacks?

No. This will probably be privileged and seems to really just be exporting the data the branch predictor collects. (vs Spectre v2, which poisons the BP to manipulate speculative threads)

And I'm guessing it only works if the branches are actually taken (vs retpoline, which removes them in cases where it's used instead of IBPB).

[Zgembo]

So, another source of data for side-channel attacks?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Branch Sampling Support Being Worked On For Linux

A new kernel patch series was posted this morning working on AMD Branch Sampling "BRS" support...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-BRS-Branch-Sampling