linux-kernel - Re: [Bug Report] Linux v6.15-rc7 boot failure on Xen-4.17

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Message-ID: <49f72564-827b-474d-b548-e035a27f882b@suse.com>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 08:02:34 +0200
From: Jürgen Groß <jgross@...e.com>
To: Gupta Pawan <pawan.kumar.gupta@...ux.intel.com>
Cc: Xin Li <xin@...or.com>, Zijlstra Peter <peterz@...radead.org>,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, x86@...nel.org,
 Hansen Dave <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>, alexandre.chartre@...cle.com,
 Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@...rix.com>, Zhang Tao1 <tao1.zhang@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [Bug Report] Linux v6.15-rc7 boot failure on Xen-4.17

On 28.05.25 23:53, Gupta Pawan wrote:
> On Wed, May 28, 2025 at 11:19:19AM +0200, Juergen Gross wrote:
>> On 28.05.25 10:57, Jürgen Groß wrote:
>>> On 28.05.25 10:26, Xin Li wrote:
>>>> On 5/28/2025 12:27 AM, Xin Li wrote:
>>>>> On 5/27/2025 11:49 PM, Juergen Gross wrote:
>>>>>> On 28.05.25 07:11, Jürgen Groß wrote:
>>>>>>> On 27.05.25 21:29, Andrew Cooper wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 27/05/2025 8:21 pm, Xin Li wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On May 27, 2025, at 11:36 AM, Jürgen Groß <jgross@...e.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On 27.05.25 19:54, Xin Li wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On 5/27/2025 10:46 AM, Pawan Gupta wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Attached is the serial console log and my kernel config.
>>>>>>>>>>>> Serial logs aren't telling much. I
>>>>>>>>>>>> do not have a Xen setup to test,
>>>>>>>>>>>> without
>>>>>>>>>>>> Xen the config that you provided is booting a KVM guest just fine.
>>>>>>>>>>> Yeah, as I replied to Juergen, the same kernel binary boots fine as
>>>>>>>>>>> "native".
>>>>>>>>>>> Unfortunately when booting as dom0 on Xen, it keeps rebooting w/o
>>>>>>>>>>> helpful log.
>>>>>>>>>> What about booting Xen on bare metal, i.e. no KVM being involved?
>>>>>>>>> The same exact problem happens on Intel Simics.
>>>>>>>>> And I got to see it’s a NX page fault in dom0
>>>>>>>>> kernel during apply alternatives.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In which case it's likely that there's an opencoded PTE update, rather
>>>>>>>> than using the hooks (which are suitably paravirt'd).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'd suspect a bug when NOT using 2M pages for execmem.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'll have a look.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Could you have a try using "nohugevmalloc" dom0 kernel boot parameter?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tried in a KVM guest, still the same problem, and nothing new in the
>>>>> serial log.
>>>>
>>>> Attached is a dom0 log with stack traces.
>>>>
>>>> But I really did NOT change anything to make it happen...
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> I think this might be related to Xen not advertising X86_FEATURE_PSE.
>>>
>>> This will use PAGE_KERNEL page protection for execmem_alloc() page protection,
>>> while with X86_FEATURE_PSE PAGE_KERNEL_ROX is being used.
>>>
>>> For the kernel (so not in a module) there is no execmem_restore_rox() call
>>> involved, so the NX bit will be kept for kernel side ITS thunks.
>>>
>>> Peter, can you confirm my suspicion?
>>
>> I just made a small test on my (rather old) system:
>>
>> I verified that kernel 6.15 is booting fine as Xen dom0 (ITS mitigation
>> not needed due to old cpu). Then I modified alternative.c to apply the
>> ITS mitigations nevertheless, which made the kernel crash as Xen dom0.
>>
>> With the following additional modification boot was working again:
>>
>> diff --git a/arch/x86/mm/init.c b/arch/x86/mm/init.c
>> index bfa444a7dbb0..fac4f9d26132 100644
>> --- a/arch/x86/mm/init.c
>> +++ b/arch/x86/mm/init.c
>> @@ -1090,7 +1090,7 @@ struct execmem_info __init *execmem_arch_setup(void)
>>                  pgprot = PAGE_KERNEL_ROX;
>>                  flags = EXECMEM_KASAN_SHADOW | EXECMEM_ROX_CACHE;
>>          } else {
>> -               pgprot = PAGE_KERNEL;
>> +               pgprot = PAGE_KERNEL_EXEC;
>>                  flags = EXECMEM_KASAN_SHADOW;
>>          }
> 
> I am not sure if returning a RWX page post-boot is a good idea.

OTOH using a non-executable page for code isn't a good idea either. :-)

I have tried to address that with the series to be found under:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250528123557.12847-1-jgross@suse.com/


Juergen

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