linux-kernel - Re: [RFC][PATCH] pstore: EFI Support

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Message-ID: <20110510165728.GC3347@gere.osrc.amd.com>
Date:	Tue, 10 May 2011 18:57:28 +0200
From:	Borislav Petkov <bp@...64.org>
To:	Seiji Aguchi <seiji.aguchi@....com>
Cc:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"x86@...nel.org" <x86@...nel.org>,
	"Luck, Tony" <tony.luck@...el.com>,
	"xiyou.wangcong@...il.com" <xiyou.wangcong@...il.com>,
	"hpa@...or.com" <hpa@...or.com>,
	"mikew@...gle.com" <mikew@...gle.com>,
	"a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl" <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"tj@...nel.org" <tj@...nel.org>,
	"fweisbec@...il.com" <fweisbec@...il.com>,
	"dle-develop@...ts.sourceforge.net" 
	<dle-develop@...ts.sourceforge.net>,
	Satoru Moriya <satoru.moriya@....com>
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH] pstore: EFI Support

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 09:11:37AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 11:00:44AM -0400, Seiji Aguchi wrote:
> > Description of boot paremeters is following.
> > 
> >  - efi_pstore_enable
> >    enable EFI support of pstore.
> > 
> >  - efi_pstore_len
> >    Sets the buffer size of EFI variable space used by pstore.
> 
> Please don't add new boot parameters if at all possible.  Distros will
> not know to enable them, and users don't know how to either.
> 
> Use sane defaults, and provide ways to override them if needed, but
> don't rely on them for new functionality if at all possible.
> 
> Why would this option ever _not_ be something that should be enabled?

Right, so if I understand this correctly, we want actually to _switch_
to the EFI method if it is safer than APEI. So it should work like this:
if the pstore detects that the system has EFI, it should switch to use
it as a method for writing persistent records to NVRAM.

Btw, is this case of the possibility for APEI of corrupting NVRAM
storage something you actually experienced on a real machine or simply a
conclusion from looking at APEI code doing ioremap()?

Thanks.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
Boris.

Advanced Micro Devices GmbH
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