Re: [PATCH v5 02/22] liveupdate: luo_core: integrate with KHO

Pasha Tatashin
2025-11-12T17:40:06Z

On Wed, Nov 12, 2025 at 10:14 AM Pasha Tatashin
<pasha.tatashin@soleen.com> wrote:
>
> > > FLB global objects act similarly to subsystem-wide data, except their
> > > data has a clear creation and destruction time tied to preserved
> > > files. When the first file of a particular type is added to LUO, this
> > > global data is created; when the last file of that type is removed
> > > (unpreserved or finished), this global data is destroyed, this is why
> > > its life is bound to file lifecycle. Crucially, this global data is
> > > accessible at any time while LUO owns the associated files spanning
> > > the early boot update boundary.
> >
> > But there are no files at mm_core_init(). I'm really confused here.
>
> This isn't about the files themselves, but about the subsystem global
> data. The files are only used to describe the lifetime of this global
> data.
>
> I think mm_core_init() is too late, and the call would need to be
> moved earlier to work correctly with subsystems. At the very least, we
> will have to add some early FDT parsing to retrieve data during early
> boot, but that would be part of the HugeTLB preservation work.
>
> I can move liveupdate_init() inside kho_memory_init(), so we don't
> need to modify mm_core_init(). Or, rename kho_memory_init to
> kho_and_liveupdate_memory_init() and combine the two calls into a
> single function in kexec_handover.c.
>
> > > > So I think for now we can move liveupdate_init() later in boot and we will
> > > > solve the problem of hugetlb reservations when we add support for hugetlb.
> > >
> > > HugeTLB reserves memory early in boot. If we already have preserved
> > > HugeTLB pages via LUO/KHO, we must ensure they are counted against the
> > > boot-time reservation. For example, if hugetlb_cma_reserve() needs to
> > > reserve ten 1G pages, but LUO has already preserved seven, we only
> > > need to reserve three new pages and the rest are going to be restored
> > > with the files.
> > >
> > > Since this count is contained in the FLB global object, that data
> > > needs to be available during the early reservation phase. (Pratyush is
> > > working on HugeTLB preservation and can explain further).
> >
> > Not sure I really follow the design here, but in my understanding the gist
> > here is that hugetlb reservations need to be aware of the preserved state.
> > If that's the case, we definitely can move liveupdate_init() to an initcall
> > and revisit this when hugetlb support for luo comes along.
>
> This will break the in-kernel tests that ensure FLB data is accessible
> and works correctly during early boot, as they use
> early_initcall(liveupdate_test_early_init);.

We had a chat, so we agreed to move liveupdate_init() into
early_initcall() and liveupdate_test_early_init into somewhere later
initcall. And when HugeTLB support is added we will introduce a
variant for read-only access to do it early in boot from setup_arch().

> We cannot rely on early_initcall() for liveupdate_init() because it
> would compete with the test. We also can't move the test to a later
> initcall, as that would break the verification of what FLB is
> promising: early access to global data by subsystems that need it
> (PCI, IOMMU Core, HugeTLB, etc.).
>
> Thanks,
> Pasha