From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail.linuxfoundation.org (mail.linuxfoundation.org [140.211.169.12]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by lists.ozlabs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 41WkxY6xtNzDqCD for ; Fri, 20 Jul 2018 05:44:49 +1000 (AEST) Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2018 12:44:44 -0700 From: Andrew Morton To: Baoquan He Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, robh+dt@kernel.org, dan.j.williams@intel.com, nicolas.pitre@linaro.org, josh@joshtriplett.org, fengguang.wu@intel.com, bp@suse.de, andy.shevchenko@gmail.com, patrik.r.jakobsson@gmail.com, airlied@linux.ie, kys@microsoft.com, haiyangz@microsoft.com, sthemmin@microsoft.com, dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com, frowand.list@gmail.com, keith.busch@intel.com, jonathan.derrick@intel.com, lorenzo.pieralisi@arm.com, bhelgaas@google.com, tglx@linutronix.de, brijesh.singh@amd.com, jglisse@redhat.com, thomas.lendacky@amd.com, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, baiyaowei@cmss.chinamobile.com, richard.weiyang@gmail.com, devel@linuxdriverproject.org, linux-input@vger.kernel.org, linux-nvdimm@lists.01.org, devicetree@vger.kernel.org, linux-pci@vger.kernel.org, ebiederm@xmission.com, vgoyal@redhat.com, dyoung@redhat.com, yinghai@kernel.org, monstr@monstr.eu, davem@davemloft.net, chris@zankel.net, jcmvbkbc@gmail.com, gustavo@padovan.org, maarten.lankhorst@linux.intel.com, seanpaul@chromium.org, linux-parisc@vger.kernel.org, linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org, kexec@lists.infradead.org Subject: Re: [PATCH v7 4/4] kexec_file: Load kernel at top of system RAM if required Message-Id: <20180719124444.c893712cca2e6f2649d1bc0d@linux-foundation.org> In-Reply-To: <20180719151753.GB7147@localhost.localdomain> References: <20180718024944.577-1-bhe@redhat.com> <20180718024944.577-5-bhe@redhat.com> <20180718153326.b795e9ea7835432a56cd7011@linux-foundation.org> <20180719151753.GB7147@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII List-Id: Linux on PowerPC Developers Mail List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Thu, 19 Jul 2018 23:17:53 +0800 Baoquan He wrote: > Hi Andrew, > > On 07/18/18 at 03:33pm, Andrew Morton wrote: > > On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 10:49:44 +0800 Baoquan He wrote: > > > > > For kexec_file loading, if kexec_buf.top_down is 'true', the memory which > > > is used to load kernel/initrd/purgatory is supposed to be allocated from > > > top to down. This is what we have been doing all along in the old kexec > > > loading interface and the kexec loading is still default setting in some > > > distributions. However, the current kexec_file loading interface doesn't > > > do like this. The function arch_kexec_walk_mem() it calls ignores checking > > > kexec_buf.top_down, but calls walk_system_ram_res() directly to go through > > > all resources of System RAM from bottom to up, to try to find memory region > > > which can contain the specific kexec buffer, then call locate_mem_hole_callback() > > > to allocate memory in that found memory region from top to down. This brings > > > confusion especially when KASLR is widely supported , users have to make clear > > > why kexec/kdump kernel loading position is different between these two > > > interfaces in order to exclude unnecessary noises. Hence these two interfaces > > > need be unified on behaviour. > > > > As far as I can tell, the above is the whole reason for the patchset, > > yes? To avoid confusing users. > > > In fact, it's not just trying to avoid confusing users. Kexec loading > and kexec_file loading are just do the same thing in essence. Just we > need do kernel image verification on uefi system, have to port kexec > loading code to kernel. > > Kexec has been a formal feature in our distro, and customers owning > those kind of very large machine can make use of this feature to speed > up the reboot process. On uefi machine, the kexec_file loading will > search place to put kernel under 4G from top to down. As we know, the > 1st 4G space is DMA32 ZONE, dma, pci mmcfg, bios etc all try to consume > it. It may have possibility to not be able to find a usable space for > kernel/initrd. From the top down of the whole memory space, we don't > have this worry. > > And at the first post, I just posted below with AKASHI's > walk_system_ram_res_rev() version. Later you suggested to use > list_head to link child sibling of resource, see what the code change > looks like. > http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180322033722.9279-1-bhe@redhat.com > > Then I posted v2 > http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20180408024724.16812-1-bhe@redhat.com > Rob Herring mentioned that other components which has this tree struct > have planned to do the same thing, replacing the singly linked list with > list_head to link resource child sibling. Just quote Rob's words as > below. I think this could be another reason. > > ~~~~~ From Rob > The DT struct device_node also has the same tree structure with > parent, child, sibling pointers and converting to list_head had been > on the todo list for a while. ACPI also has some tree walking > functions (drivers/acpi/acpica/pstree.c). Perhaps there should be a > common tree struct and helpers defined either on top of list_head or a > ~~~~~ > new struct if that saves some size. Please let's get all this into the changelogs? > > > > Is that sufficient? Can we instead simplify their lives by providing > > better documentation or informative printks or better Kconfig text, > > etc? > > > > And who *are* the people who are performing this configuration? Random > > system administrators? Linux distro engineers? If the latter then > > they presumably aren't easily confused! > > Kexec was invented for kernel developer to speed up their kernel > rebooting. Now high end sever admin, kernel developer and QE are also > keen to use it to reboot large box for faster feature testing, bug > debugging. Kernel dev could know this well, about kernel loading > position, admin or QE might not be aware of it very well. > > > > > In other words, I'm trying to understand how much benefit this patchset > > will provide to our users as a whole. > > Understood. The list_head replacing patch truly involes too many code > changes, it's risky. I am willing to try any idea from reviewers, won't > persuit they have to be accepted finally. If don't have a try, we don't > know what it looks like, and what impact it may have. I am fine to take > AKASHI's simple version of walk_system_ram_res_rev() to lower risk, even > though it could be a little bit low efficient. The larger patch produces a better result. We can handle it ;)