[PATCH v2 2/3] x86/boot: Introduce the setup_indirect

[Daniel Kiper]

The setup_data is a bit awkward to use for extremely large data objects,
both because the setup_data header has to be adjacent to the data object
and because it has a 32-bit length field. However, it is important that
intermediate stages of the boot process have a way to identify which
chunks of memory are occupied by kernel data.

Thus we introduce a uniform way to specify such indirect data as
setup_indirect struct and SETUP_INDIRECT type.

This patch does not bump setup_header version in arch/x86/boot/header.S
because it will be followed by additional changes coming into the
Linux/x86 boot protocol.

Suggested-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@xxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Eric Snowberg <eric.snowberg@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Ross Philipson <ross.philipson@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
v2 - suggestions/fixes:
   - add setup_indirect usage example
     (suggested by Eric Snowberg and Ross Philipson).
---
 Documentation/x86/boot.rst            | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 arch/x86/include/uapi/asm/bootparam.h | 11 +++++++++-
 2 files changed, 47 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/x86/boot.rst b/Documentation/x86/boot.rst
index a934a56f0516..23d3726d54fc 100644
--- a/Documentation/x86/boot.rst
+++ b/Documentation/x86/boot.rst
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ Protocol 2.14:	BURNT BY INCORRECT COMMIT ae7e1238e68f2a472a125673ab506d49158c188
 		(x86/boot: Add ACPI RSDP address to setup_header)
 		DO NOT USE!!! ASSUME SAME AS 2.13.
 
-Protocol 2.15:	(Kernel 5.3) Added the kernel_info.
+Protocol 2.15:	(Kernel 5.3) Added the kernel_info and setup_indirect.
 =============	============================================================
 
 .. note::
@@ -827,6 +827,42 @@ Protocol:	2.09+
   sure to consider the case where the linked list already contains
   entries.
 
+  The setup_data is a bit awkward to use for extremely large data objects,
+  both because the setup_data header has to be adjacent to the data object
+  and because it has a 32-bit length field. However, it is important that
+  intermediate stages of the boot process have a way to identify which
+  chunks of memory are occupied by kernel data.
+
+  Thus setup_indirect struct and SETUP_INDIRECT type were introduced in
+  protocol 2.15.
+  
+  struct setup_indirect {
+    __u32 type;
+    __u32 reserved;  /* Reserved, must be set to zero. */
+    __u64 len;
+    __u64 addr;
+  };
+
+  The type member is itself simply a SETUP_* type. However, it cannot be
+  SETUP_INDIRECT since making the setup_indirect a tree structure could
+  require a lot of stack space in something that needs to parse it and
+  stack space can be limited in boot contexts.
+
+  Let's give an example how to point to SETUP_E820_EXT data using setup_indirect.
+  In this case setup_data and setup_indirect will look like this:
+
+  struct setup_data {
+    __u64 next = 0 or <addr_of_next_setup_data_struct>;
+    __u32 type = SETUP_INDIRECT;
+    __u32 len = sizeof(setup_data);
+    __u8 data[sizeof(setup_indirect)] = struct setup_indirect {
+      __u32 type = SETUP_E820_EXT;
+      __u32 reserved = 0;
+      __u64 len = <len_of_SETUP_E820_EXT_data>;
+      __u64 addr = <addr_of_SETUP_E820_EXT_data>;
+    }
+  }
+
 ============	============
 Field name:	pref_address
 Type:		read (reloc)
diff --git a/arch/x86/include/uapi/asm/bootparam.h b/arch/x86/include/uapi/asm/bootparam.h
index b05318112452..aaaa17fa6ad6 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/uapi/asm/bootparam.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/uapi/asm/bootparam.h
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 #ifndef _ASM_X86_BOOTPARAM_H
 #define _ASM_X86_BOOTPARAM_H
 
-/* setup_data types */
+/* setup_data/setup_indirect types */
 #define SETUP_NONE			0
 #define SETUP_E820_EXT			1
 #define SETUP_DTB			2
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 #define SETUP_EFI			4
 #define SETUP_APPLE_PROPERTIES		5
 #define SETUP_JAILHOUSE			6
+#define SETUP_INDIRECT			7
 
 /* ram_size flags */
 #define RAMDISK_IMAGE_START_MASK	0x07FF
@@ -47,6 +48,14 @@ struct setup_data {
 	__u8 data[0];
 };
 
+/* extensible setup indirect data node */
+struct setup_indirect {
+	__u32 type;
+	__u32 reserved;  /* Reserved, must be set to zero. */
+	__u64 len;
+	__u64 addr;
+};
+
 struct setup_header {
 	__u8	setup_sects;
 	__u16	root_flags;
-- 
2.11.0