Re: [RFC] ELF Relocatable x86 and x86_64 bzImages

Magnus Damm
2006-08-02T06:34:42Z

On 8/1/06, Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> wrote:
>
> The problem:
>
> We can't always run the kernel at 1MB or 2MB, and so people who need
> different addresses must build multiple kernels. The bzImage format
> can't even represent loading a kernel at other than it's default address.
> With kexec on panic now starting to be used by distros having a kernel
> not running at the default load address is starting to become common.
>
> The goal of this patch series is to build kernels that are relocatable
> at run time, and to extend the bzImage format to make it capable of
> expressing a relocatable kernel.

Nice work. I'd really like to see support for relocatable kernels in
mainline (and kexec-tools!).

Eric, could you please list the advantages of your run-time relocation
code over my incomplete relocate-in-userspace prototype posted to
fastboot a few weeks ago?

One thing I know for sure is that your implementation supports bzImage
while my only supports relocation of vmlinux files. Are there any
other uses for relocatable bzImage except kdump?

Thanks!

/ magnus