x86 control-flow protection intrinsics (Using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC))

#### 7.13.40 x86 Control-Flow Protection Intrinsics ¶

CET Function: `ret_type` _get_ssp `(void)` ¶

  Get the current value of shadow stack pointer if shadow stack support from Intel CET is enabled in the hardware or `0` otherwise. The `ret_type` is `unsigned long long` for 64-bit targets and `unsigned int` for 32-bit targets.

CET Function: `void` _inc_ssp `(unsigned int)` ¶

  Increment the current shadow stack pointer by the size specified by the function argument. The argument is masked to a byte value for security reasons, so to increment by more than 255 bytes you must call the function multiple times.

The shadow stack unwind code looks like:

    #include <immintrin.h>

    /* Unwind the shadow stack for EH.  */
    #define _Unwind_Frames_Extra(x)       \
      do                                  \
        {                                \
          _Unwind_Word ssp = _get_ssp (); \
          if (ssp != 0)                   \
            {                            \
              _Unwind_Word tmp = (x);     \
              while (tmp > 255)           \
                {                        \
                  _inc_ssp (tmp);         \
                  tmp -= 255;             \
                }                        \
              _inc_ssp (tmp);             \
            }                            \
        }                                \
        while (0)

This code runs unconditionally on all 64-bit processors. For 32-bit processors the code runs on those that support multi-byte NOP instructions.