[PATCH v3] arm64/efi: efistub: jump to 'stext' directly, not through the header

[mark.rutland@arm.com (Mark Rutland)]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 12:52:32PM +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> On 10 October 2014 12:49, Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 09, 2014 at 08:03:52PM +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> >> On 9 October 2014 19:23, Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> wrote:
> >> > Hi Ard,
> >> >
> >> > On Wed, Oct 08, 2014 at 03:11:27PM +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> >> >> After the EFI stub has done its business, it jumps into the kernel by
> >> >> branching to offset #0 of the loaded Image, which is where it expects
> >> >> to find the header containing a 'branch to stext' instruction.
> >> >>
> >> >> However, the UEFI spec 2.1.1 states the following regarding PE/COFF
> >> >> image loading:
> >> >> "A UEFI image is loaded into memory through the LoadImage() Boot
> >> >> Service. This service loads an image with a PE32+ format into memory.
> >> >> This PE32+ loader is required to load all sections of the PE32+ image
> >> >> into memory."
> >> >>
> >> >> In other words, it is /not/ required to load parts of the image that are
> >> >> not covered by a PE/COFF section, so it may not have loaded the header
> >> >> at the expected offset, as it is not covered by any PE/COFF section.
> >> >
> >> > What does this mean for handle_kernel_image? Given we might not have
> >> > _text through to _stext mapped, do we not need to take that into
> >> > account?
> >> >
> >>
> >> Actually, handle_kernel_image() does not interpret the header, it just
> >> copies it along with the rest of the image if it needs to be
> >> relocated, so I don't see an issue there.
> >
> > Sorry, I wasn't clear enough with my concern. My concern was whether we
> > had any guarantee _something_ was mapped for the address range covering
> > efi_head to stext.
> >
> > So long as _something_ is mapped there, we're ok -- handle_kernel_image
> > will just copy some garbage along with the usable portion of the kernel.
> >
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> > But if the EFI loader is allowed to load stext at the precise start of
> > RAM (or anywhere not in the idmap), in attempting the copy we'd try to
> > access unmapped addresses.
> >
> > So if that's a possibility, we need to shrink the copy to cover stext
> > to _edata rather than _text to edata.
> >
> > Does that make sense?
> >
> 
> That cannot happen. The PE/COFF .text section's positive relative
> virtual offset ensures that the memory image has room for the header,
> it's just not guaranteed that anything gets copied there.

Ok. If we're guaranteed to have some space there, we're fine.

I'm probably being a bit thick here, but where is the "positive relative
virtual offset" in the header? Which field defines that?

Thanks,
Mark.