[PATCH v5 3/3] arm64,ppc64le/kdump: pass dm-crypt keys to kdump kernel

Coiby Xu
2026-02-25T06:04:11Z

CONFIG_CRASH_DM_CRYPT has been introduced to support LUKS-encrypted
device dump target by addressing two challenges [1],
- Kdump kernel may not be able to decrypt the LUKS partition. For some
machines, a system administrator may not have a chance to enter the
password to decrypt the device in kdump initramfs after the 1st kernel
crashes

- LUKS2 by default use the memory-hard Argon2 key derivation function
which is quite memory-consuming compared to the limited memory reserved
for kdump.

To also enable this feature for ARM64 and PowerPC, the missing piece is
to let the kdump kernel know where to find the dm-crypt keys which are
randomly stored in memory reserved for kdump. Introduce a new device
tree property dmcryptkeys [2] as similar to elfcorehdr to pass the
memory address of the stored info of dm-crypt keys to the kdump kernel.
Since this property is only needed by the kdump kernel, it won't be
exposed to user space.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250502011246.99238-1-coxu@redhat.com/
[2] https://github.com/devicetree-org/dt-schema/pull/181

Cc: Arnaud Lefebvre <arnaud.lefebvre@clever-cloud.com>
Cc: Baoquan he <bhe@redhat.com>
Cc: Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com>
Cc: Kairui Song <ryncsn@gmail.com>
Cc: Pingfan Liu <kernelfans@gmail.com>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@kernel.org>
Cc: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>
Cc: Thomas Staudt <tstaudt@de.ibm.com>
Cc: Sourabh Jain <sourabhjain@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Cc: Christophe Leroy (CS GROUP) <chleroy@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Coiby Xu <coxu@redhat.com>
---
arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c | 4 ++++
arch/powerpc/kexec/elf_64.c | 4 ++++
drivers/of/fdt.c | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
drivers/of/kexec.c | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
4 files changed, 48 insertions(+)

diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c b/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c
index fba260ad87a9..e31fabed378a 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c
@@ -134,6 +134,10 @@ int load_other_segments(struct kimage *image,

kexec_dprintk("Loaded elf core header at 0x%lx bufsz=0x%lx memsz=0x%lx\n",
image->elf_load_addr, kbuf.bufsz, kbuf.memsz);
+
+ ret = crash_load_dm_crypt_keys(image);
+ if (ret)
+ goto out_err;
}
#endif

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kexec/elf_64.c b/arch/powerpc/kexec/elf_64.c
index 5d6d616404cf..ea50a072debf 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kexec/elf_64.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kexec/elf_64.c
@@ -79,6 +79,10 @@ static void *elf64_load(struct kimage *image, char *kernel_buf,
goto out;
}

+ ret = crash_load_dm_crypt_keys(image);
+ if (ret)
+ goto out;
+
/* Setup cmdline for kdump kernel case */
modified_cmdline = setup_kdump_cmdline(image, cmdline,
cmdline_len);
diff --git a/drivers/of/fdt.c b/drivers/of/fdt.c
index 331646d667b9..2967e4aff807 100644
--- a/drivers/of/fdt.c
+++ b/drivers/of/fdt.c
@@ -866,6 +866,26 @@ static void __init early_init_dt_check_for_elfcorehdr(unsigned long node)
elfcorehdr_addr, elfcorehdr_size);
}

+static void __init early_init_dt_check_for_dmcryptkeys(unsigned long node)
+{
+ const char *prop_name = "linux,dmcryptkeys";
+ const __be32 *prop;
+
+ if (!IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_CRASH_DM_CRYPT))
+ return;
+
+ pr_debug("Looking for dmcryptkeys property... ");
+
+ prop = of_get_flat_dt_prop(node, prop_name, NULL);
+ if (!prop)
+ return;
+
+ dm_crypt_keys_addr = dt_mem_next_cell(dt_root_addr_cells, &prop);
+
+ /* Property only accessible to crash dump kernel */
+ fdt_delprop(initial_boot_params, node, prop_name);
+}
+
static unsigned long chosen_node_offset = -FDT_ERR_NOTFOUND;

/*
@@ -1097,6 +1117,7 @@ int __init early_init_dt_scan_chosen(char *cmdline)

early_init_dt_check_for_initrd(node);
early_init_dt_check_for_elfcorehdr(node);
+ early_init_dt_check_for_dmcryptkeys(node);

rng_seed = of_get_flat_dt_prop(node, "rng-seed", &l);
if (rng_seed && l > 0) {
diff --git a/drivers/of/kexec.c b/drivers/of/kexec.c
index c4cf3552c018..fbd253f0d3c5 100644
--- a/drivers/of/kexec.c
+++ b/drivers/of/kexec.c
@@ -423,6 +423,25 @@ void *of_kexec_alloc_and_setup_fdt(const struct kimage *image,
if (ret)
goto out;

+ if (image->dm_crypt_keys_addr != 0) {
+ ret = fdt_appendprop_addrrange(fdt, 0, chosen_node,
+ "linux,dmcryptkeys",
+ image->dm_crypt_keys_addr,
+ image->dm_crypt_keys_sz);
+
+ if (ret)
+ goto out;
+
+ /*
+ * Avoid dmcryptkeys from being stomped on in kdump kernel by
+ * setting up memory reserve map.
+ */
+ ret = fdt_add_mem_rsv(fdt, image->dm_crypt_keys_addr,
+ image->dm_crypt_keys_sz);
+ if (ret)
+ goto out;
+ }
+
#ifdef CONFIG_CRASH_DUMP
/* add linux,usable-memory-range */
ret = fdt_appendprop_addrrange(fdt, 0, chosen_node,
--
2.53.0