linux-kernel - [PATCH V3] init: Handle bootloader identifier in kernel parameters

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Message-ID: <20250721101343.3283480-1-chenhuacai@loongson.cn>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2025 18:13:43 +0800
From: Huacai Chen <chenhuacai@...ngson.cn>
To: Huacai Chen <chenhuacai@...nel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc: linux-mm@...ck.org,
	Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
	Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>,
	Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Huacai Chen <chenhuacai@...ngson.cn>,
	stable@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH V3] init: Handle bootloader identifier in kernel parameters

BootLoader (Grub, LILO, etc) may pass an identifier such as "BOOT_IMAGE=
/boot/vmlinuz-x.y.z" to kernel parameters. But these identifiers are not
recognized by the kernel itself so will be passed to user space. However
user space init program also doesn't recognized it.

KEXEC/KDUMP (kexec-tools) may also pass an identifier such as "kexec" on
some architectures.

We cannot change BootLoader's behavior, because this behavior exists for
many years, and there are already user space programs search BOOT_IMAGE=
in /proc/cmdline to obtain the kernel image locations:

https://github.com/linuxdeepin/deepin-ab-recovery/blob/master/util.go
(search getBootOptions)
https://github.com/linuxdeepin/deepin-ab-recovery/blob/master/main.go
(search getKernelReleaseWithBootOption)

So the the best way is handle (ignore) it by the kernel itself, which
can avoid such boot warnings (if we use something like init=/bin/bash,
bootloader identifier can even cause a crash):

Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,1)/vmlinuz-6.x root=/dev/sda3 ro console=tty
Unknown kernel command line parameters "BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,1)/vmlinuz-6.x", will be passed to user space.

Cc: stable@...r.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Huacai Chen <chenhuacai@...ngson.cn>
---
V2: Update comments and commit messages.
V3: Document bootloader identifiers.

 init/main.c | 12 ++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+)

diff --git a/init/main.c b/init/main.c
index 225a58279acd..b25e7da5347a 100644
--- a/init/main.c
+++ b/init/main.c
@@ -545,6 +545,12 @@ static int __init unknown_bootoption(char *param, char *val,
 				     const char *unused, void *arg)
 {
 	size_t len = strlen(param);
+	/*
+	 * Well-known bootloader identifiers:
+	 * 1. LILO/Grub pass "BOOT_IMAGE=...";
+	 * 2. kexec/kdump (kexec-tools) pass "kexec".
+	 */
+	const char *bootloader[] = { "BOOT_IMAGE=", "kexec", NULL };
 
 	/* Handle params aliased to sysctls */
 	if (sysctl_is_alias(param))
@@ -552,6 +558,12 @@ static int __init unknown_bootoption(char *param, char *val,
 
 	repair_env_string(param, val);
 
+	/* Handle bootloader identifier */
+	for (int i = 0; bootloader[i]; i++) {
+		if (!strncmp(param, bootloader[i], strlen(bootloader[i])))
+			return 0;
+	}
+
 	/* Handle obsolete-style parameters */
 	if (obsolete_checksetup(param))
 		return 0;
-- 
2.47.3