Benchmarking The Performance Impact Of Linux 5.15's Newest Protection Around Side Channel Attacks

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 3 September 2021 at 09:05 AM EDT. Page 3 of 5. 13 Comments.
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS

Across a wide range of different real-world benchmarks that involve file operations and other kernel interactivity, there wasn't any noticeable difference with using ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS with the GCC 11 built kernel.

5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
5950X Linux 5.15 Hardening ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS

For I/O micro-benchmarks, it depended upon the particular test case but in some areas there was a minor hit to the performance.


Related Articles