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* [PATCH] hw/i386: reserve the initrd in e820 for direct kernel boot
@ 2026-09-02  6:10 Ray Lee
  0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Ray Lee @ 2026-09-02  6:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: qemu-devel; +Cc: pbonzini, mst, richard.henderson, Ray Lee

With -kernel/-initrd, x86_load_linux() places the initrd at the top
of low RAM but does not reserve that range in e820.  SeaBIOS
allocates virtio vrings top-down from the same area, so with enough
devices the vrings overlap the initrd and firmware DMA corrupts it.

Reserve the initrd range in the e820 table; SeaBIOS and OVMF both
honor "etc/e820" reservations when setting up their memory
allocators.

Resolves: https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/work_items/4396
Signed-off-by: Ray Lee <hburaylee@gmail.com>
---
 hw/i386/x86-common.c | 15 +++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/hw/i386/x86-common.c b/hw/i386/x86-common.c
index 8f9419e7d3..4e85fde987 100644
--- a/hw/i386/x86-common.c
+++ b/hw/i386/x86-common.c
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@
 
 #include "hw/core/irq.h"
 #include "hw/core/loader.h"
+#include "e820_memory_layout.h"
 #include "multiboot.h"
 #include "elf.h"
 #include "standard-headers/asm-x86/bootparam.h"
@@ -744,6 +745,13 @@ void x86_load_linux(X86MachineState *x86ms,
 
                 initrd_addr = (initrd_max - initrd_size) & ~4095;
 
+                /*
+                 * Keep firmware (e.g. SeaBIOS) from allocating over the
+                 * initrd at the top of RAM.
+                 */
+                e820_add_entry(initrd_addr, QEMU_ALIGN_UP(initrd_size, 4096),
+                               E820_RESERVED);
+
                 fw_cfg_add_i32(fw_cfg, FW_CFG_INITRD_ADDR, initrd_addr);
                 fw_cfg_add_i32(fw_cfg, FW_CFG_INITRD_SIZE, initrd_size);
                 fw_cfg_add_bytes(fw_cfg, FW_CFG_INITRD_DATA, initrd_data,
@@ -889,6 +897,13 @@ void x86_load_linux(X86MachineState *x86ms,
 
         initrd_addr = (initrd_max - initrd_size) & ~4095;
 
+        /*
+         * Keep firmware (e.g. SeaBIOS) from allocating over the initrd
+         * at the top of RAM.
+         */
+        e820_add_entry(initrd_addr, QEMU_ALIGN_UP(initrd_size, 4096),
+                       E820_RESERVED);
+
         fw_cfg_add_i32(fw_cfg, FW_CFG_INITRD_ADDR, initrd_addr);
         fw_cfg_add_i32(fw_cfg, FW_CFG_INITRD_SIZE, initrd_size);
         fw_cfg_add_bytes(fw_cfg, FW_CFG_INITRD_DATA, initrd_data, initrd_size);
-- 
2.53.0



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2026-09-02  6:10 [PATCH] hw/i386: reserve the initrd in e820 for direct kernel boot Ray Lee

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