Re: [PATCH RFC] x86: check for and defend against BIOS memory corruption

Ingo Molnar
2008-09-06T18:10:36Z

* Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org> wrote:

> > I would prefer you both to use the minimal memmap= solutions for
> > now; but others may disagree.
>
> The fact that we're seeing this problem in two completely different
> systems with different BIOSes and everything else makes me worried
> that this is quite widespread. It's only the persistence and
> diligence of our bug reporters that we managed to work out that
> they're the same problem. How many other people are getting strange
> crashes and haven't managed to correlate it any particular BIOS
> interaction? Or just happen to be corrupting memory we don't care
> about right now, but is only a small code change or link order change
> away from disaster?

please put this all behind a .config debug option that distros can turn
on/off. Also, when it's enabled in the .config, there should be another
.config option that marks it disabled by default but it can be enabled
via a boot parameter.

Distro debug kernels will most likely enable the .config - even release
kernels might enable it it, with default off - users can enable the boot
switch if they suspect something, without having to build a new kernel.

Ingo