Question

Linux 3.4.6 defines the following macros in arch/x86/include/asm/segment.h. Can anybody explain why the __USER macros add 3 to the defined constant and why this is not done for __KERNEL macros?

#define __KERNEL_CS (GDT_ENTRY_KERNEL_CS*8)
#define __KERNEL_DS (GDT_ENTRY_KERNEL_DS*8)
#define __USER_DS   (GDT_ENTRY_DEFAULT_USER_DS*8+3)
#define __USER_CS   (GDT_ENTRY_DEFAULT_USER_CS*8+3)

Answer 1

These four symbols represent segment descriptors. The two least-significant bits of these descriptors contain the privilege level associated with them, and the third least-significant bit contains the descriptor table type (GDT or LDT). This is made clearer by code occurring a little later:

/* User mode is privilege level 3 */
#define USER_RPL                0x3
/* LDT segment has TI set, GDT has it cleared */
#define SEGMENT_LDT             0x4
#define SEGMENT_GDT             0x0

/* Bottom two bits of selector give the ring privilege level */
#define SEGMENT_RPL_MASK        0x3
/* Bit 2 is table indicator (LDT/GDT) */
#define SEGMENT_TI_MASK         0x4

To achieve this, the descriptor table entry is multiplied by 8, which shifts it three bits to the left, and then ORed with the table type and privilege level (using addition):

/* GDT, ring 0 (kernel mode) */
#define __KERNEL_CS (GDT_ENTRY_KERNEL_CS*8)

/* GDT, ring 3 (user mode) */
#define __USER_CS   (GDT_ENTRY_DEFAULT_USER_CS*8+3)