linux-hardening - Re: [REBASE PATCH v5 08/17] arm64: mm: Add dynamic ramoops region support through command line

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Message-ID: <85d5aea1-71f8-4465-9787-b3289119cac2@quicinc.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2023 21:21:28 +0530
From: Pavan Kondeti <quic_pkondeti@...cinc.com>
To: Mukesh Ojha <quic_mojha@...cinc.com>
CC: Pavan Kondeti <quic_pkondeti@...cinc.com>,
        Kees Cook
	<keescook@...omium.org>, Will Deacon <will@...nel.org>,
        <corbet@....net>, <agross@...nel.org>, <andersson@...nel.org>,
        <konrad.dybcio@...aro.org>, <robh+dt@...nel.org>,
        <krzysztof.kozlowski+dt@...aro.org>, <conor+dt@...nel.org>,
        <tony.luck@...el.com>, <gpiccoli@...lia.com>,
        <mathieu.poirier@...aro.org>, <catalin.marinas@....com>,
        <linus.walleij@...aro.org>, <andy.shevchenko@...il.com>,
        <vigneshr@...com>, <nm@...com>, <matthias.bgg@...il.com>,
        <kgene@...nel.org>, <alim.akhtar@...sung.com>, <bmasney@...hat.com>,
        <quic_tsoni@...cinc.com>, <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>,
        <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <linux-arm-msm@...r.kernel.org>,
        <linux-hardening@...r.kernel.org>, <linux-remoteproc@...r.kernel.org>,
        <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>, <linux-gpio@...r.kernel.org>,
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        <linux-samsung-soc@...r.kernel.org>, <kernel@...cinc.com>
Subject: Re: [REBASE PATCH v5 08/17] arm64: mm: Add dynamic ramoops region
 support through command line

On Thu, Oct 05, 2023 at 09:12:25PM +0530, Mukesh Ojha wrote:
> 
> 
> On 10/5/2023 5:14 PM, Pavan Kondeti wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 05, 2023 at 04:52:20PM +0530, Mukesh Ojha wrote:
> > > Sorry for the late reply, was on a long vacation.
> > > 
> > > On 9/14/2023 4:47 AM, Kees Cook wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 11:18:20AM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
> > > > > On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 04:23:50PM +0530, Mukesh Ojha wrote:
> > > > > > The reserved memory region for ramoops is assumed to be at a fixed
> > > > > > and known location when read from the devicetree. This may not be
> > > > > > required for something like Qualcomm's minidump which is interested
> > > > > > in knowing addresses of ramoops region but it does not put hard
> > > > > > requirement of address being fixed as most of it's SoC does not
> > > > > > support warm reset and does not use pstorefs at all instead it has
> > > > > > firmware way of collecting ramoops region if it gets to know the
> > > > > > address and register it with apss minidump table which is sitting
> > > > > > in shared memory region in DDR and firmware will have access to
> > > > > > these table during reset and collects it on crash of SoC.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > So, add the support of reserving ramoops region to be dynamically
> > > > > > allocated early during boot if it is request through command line
> > > > > > via 'dyn_ramoops_size=' and fill up reserved resource structure and
> > > > > > export the structure, so that it can be read by ramoops driver.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Signed-off-by: Mukesh Ojha <quic_mojha@...cinc.com>
> > > > > > ---
> > > > > >    arch/arm64/mm/init.c       | 94 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > > > > 
> > > > > Why does this need to be in the arch code? There's absolutely nothing
> > > > > arm64-specific here.
> > > > 
> > > > I would agree: this needs to be in ramoops itself, IMO. It should be a
> > > > ramoops module argument, too.
> > > > 
> > > > It being unhelpful for systems that don't have an external consumer is
> > > > certainly true, but I think it would still make more sense for this
> > > > change to live entirely within ramoops. Specifically: you're
> > > > implementing a pstore backend behavioral change. In the same way that
> > > > patch 10 is putting the "output" side of this into pstore/, I'd expect
> > > > the "input" side also in pstore/
> > > 
> > > How do we reserve memory? are you suggesting to use dma api's for
> > > dynamic ramoops ?
> > > 
> > Sharing my thoughts:
> > 
> > Your patch is inspired from how kexec allocate memory for crash kernel
> > right?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > There is a series [1] which moved arch code (ARM64/x86) to
> > generic kexec core. Something we should also do as the feedback
> > received here.
> > 
> > Coming to how part, we still have to use memblock API to increase the chance
> > of allocating contiguous memory. Since PSTORE_RAM can also be
> > compiled as a module, we probably need another pstore layer that needs to
> > be built statically in kernel to allocate memory using memblock API.
> > once slab is available, all memblock API will re-direct to slab
> > allocations. This layer can be enabled via ARCH_WANTS_PSTORE_xxx or
> > another config that only supports 'y'. PSTORE_RAM can still be a module but
> > when this layer is available, it supports dynamic ramoops. Another option
> > would be just including this layer in PSTORE RAM module but take away module
> > option  when this layer is enabled.
> 
> I thought about this but still the caller will be in Arch code,
> right ? would that be fine with others ?
> 

The caller is not necessarily to be in the arch code. For ex:
mm_core_init()->kfence_alloc_pool_and_metadata()

> > 
> > 
> > [1]
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/20211020020317.1220-6-thunder.leizhen@huawei.com/