linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] Allow the trampoline to use EFI boot services RAM

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Date:	Thu, 11 Aug 2016 10:52:25 +0200
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
To:	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Matt Fleming <matt@...eblueprint.co.uk>
Cc:	Mario Limonciello <mario_limonciello@...l.com>,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>, X86 ML <x86@...nel.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Matt Fleming <mfleming@...e.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 0/5] Allow the trampoline to use EFI boot services RAM


* Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net> wrote:

> On Aug 10, 2016 3:31 PM, "Ingo Molnar" <mingo@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > One side note:
> >
> > * Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> > > This series fixes it the other way: it allow the trampoline to live
> > > in boot services memory.  It achieves this by deferring the panic
> > > due to failure to reserve a trampoline until early_initcall time
> > > and then adjusting the EFI boot services quirk to reserve space
> > > for the trampoline if we haven't already found it a home.
> >
> > >   x86/efi: Allocate a trampoline if needed in efi_free_boot_services()
> >
> > Btw., this means that we first try to allocate the trampoline the old fashioned
> > way, and in the rare cases this fails we allocate it from the EFI data area,
> > right?
> 
> Yes, exactly.
> 
> >
> > This is problematic from the probability management POV: we are creating a rare
> > piece of code that will run only on a select few systems.
> >
> > I think it would be much better to allocate the trampoline from the EFI area on
> > all EFI systems by default. Is there any reason why that would not work?
> 
> I think most EFI systems don't have any boot services below 1MB, so
> that wouldn't work.
> 
> We could try allocating from EFI more generically, but that sounds
> much scarier.  The EFI memory map code is tangled with the e820 code
> and the memblock code, and I'd be nervous about confusing the e820
> code or accidentally allocating blacklisted RAM (EBDA,
> Sandybridge-quirked, etc.)  The code I wrote should only allocate the
> trampoline at a different address than current kernels in cases where
> current kernels would panic.
> 
> I don't like it either, but after scratching my head for a while I
> didn't come up with anything better.  At least the actual special case
> is only a couple lines of code.

Ok, fine enough to me!

Matt, is patch #5:

   [PATCH v2 5/5] x86/efi: Allocate a trampoline if needed in efi_free_boot_services()

looking good to you?

Thanks,

	Ingo