Re: [PATCH] THE LINUX/I386 BOOT PROTOCOL - Breaking the 256 limit (ping)

[Alon Bar-Lev <alon.barlev@gmail.com>]

Alon Bar-Lev wrote:
> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Found the references.  This seems to imply that EDD overwrites the 
>> area used by LILO 22.6.1.  LILO 22.6.1 uses the new boot protocol, 
>> with the full pointer, and seems to obey the spec as far as I can read 
>> the code.  I'm going to try to run it in simulation and observe the 
>> failure that way.
>>
>> However, something is still seriously out of joint.  The EDD data 
>> actually overlays the setup code, not the bootsect code, and thus 
>> there "shouldn't" be any way that this could interfere.  My best guess 
>> at this time is that either the EDD code or LILO uses memory it's not 
>> supposed to use, and the simulation should hopefully reveal that.
>>
>> Sorry if I seem snarky on this, but if we can't get to the bottom of 
>> this we can't ever fix it.
>>
>>     -hpa
>>
> 
> I think I've found one problem... But I it should not be the major one.
> The EDD code scans the command-line as fixed string.
> What about something like the following?
> 
> Best Regards,
> Alon Bar-Lev.
> 
> diff -urNp linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2/arch/i386/boot/edd.S 
> linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2.new/arch/i386/boot/edd.S
> --- linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2/arch/i386/boot/edd.S   2006-06-18 
> 04:49:35.000000000 +0300
> +++ linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2.new/arch/i386/boot/edd.S       2006-08-28 
> 08:55:01.000000000 +0300
> @@ -29,6 +29,8 @@
>         movl    $(COMMAND_LINE_SIZE-7), %ecx
>  # loop through kernel command line one byte at a time
>  cl_loop:
> +       cmpb    $0,(%si)
> +       jz      done_cl
>         cmpl    $EDD_CL_EQUALS, (%si)
>         jz      found_edd_equals
>         incl    %esi
> 

Better patch.
I've noticed that this code sets esi but then reference using si... So fixed to
use esi (It worked so far since we are in low area... But I think using the same
register type is cleaner...)

Best Regards,
Alon Bar-Lev.

diff -urNp linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2/arch/i386/boot/edd.S linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2.new/arch/i386/boot/edd.S
--- linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2/arch/i386/boot/edd.S   2006-06-18 04:49:35.000000000 +0300
+++ linux-2.6.18-rc4-mm2.new/arch/i386/boot/edd.S       2006-08-28 09:34:39.000000000 +0300
@@ -29,7 +29,9 @@
         movl    $(COMMAND_LINE_SIZE-7), %ecx
  # loop through kernel command line one byte at a time
  cl_loop:
-       cmpl    $EDD_CL_EQUALS, (%si)
+       cmpb    $0,(%esi)
+       jz      done_cl
+       cmpl    $EDD_CL_EQUALS, (%esi)
         jz      found_edd_equals
         incl    %esi
         loop    cl_loop
@@ -37,9 +39,9 @@ cl_loop:
  found_edd_equals:
  # only looking at first two characters after equals
         addl    $4, %esi
-       cmpw    $EDD_CL_OFF, (%si)      # edd=of
+       cmpw    $EDD_CL_OFF, (%esi)     # edd=of
         jz      do_edd_off
-       cmpw    $EDD_CL_SKIP, (%si)     # edd=sk
+       cmpw    $EDD_CL_SKIP, (%esi)    # edd=sk
         jz      do_edd_skipmbr
         jmp     done_cl
  do_edd_skipmbr: