linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86: only load initrd above 4g on second try

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Date:	Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:05:50 -0700
From:	Yinghai Lu <yinghai@...nel.org>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Cc:	Matt Fleming <matt.fleming@...el.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Mantas Mikulėnas <grawity@...il.com>,
	Anders Darander <anders@...rgestorm.se>,
	linux-efi@...r.kernel.org,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86: only load initrd above 4g on second try

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 2:53 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com> wrote:
> On 08/26/2014 02:45 PM, Yinghai Lu wrote:
>> Mantas found that after commit 4bf7111f5016 ("x86/efi: Support initrd
>> loaded above 4G"), the kernel freezes at the earliest possible moment
>> when trying to boot via UEFI on Asus laptop.
>>
>> There are buggy EFI implementations: with EFI run time, kernel need
>> to load file with 512bytes alignment when buffer is above 4G.
>>
>
> This makes absolutely zero sense.  Please explain what the actual
> problem is here.

The firmware has bug and can use buffer above 4G to read files.
and if the file size is 512 bytes alignment, then reading could go through.

>From Mantas:
--
On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Mantas Mikulėnas <grawity@...il.com> wrote:
>
> I experimented with some things (like setting chunk size to a few kB
> to see if it hangs earlier or only at the very end; etc.), and finally
> found out that it stops freezing if I pad the initrd file to a
> multiple of 512 bytes :/ That is, 5684268 bytes will freeze, 5684736
> bytes will not.
>
> ...In other words, seems like it cannot read chunks that aren't
> multiples of 512 into a location above 4 GB. Or something like that..


>From Matt:
---
> OK, we're out of options here. Yinghai, we're going to have to revert
> your patch, 4bf7111f5016 ("x86/efi: Support initrd loaded above 4G")
>
> We could conceivably add a boot parameter option to attempt loading
> inirds above 4G, but we can't turn the feature on by default because of
> all these buggy EFI implementations - things must work out of the box.
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