Re: RFC x86/boot/64: BOOT_PGT_SIZE definition for compressed kernel

From: Arvind Sankar
Date: Sat Oct 24 2020 - 22:21:08 EST


On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 08:41:58PM -0400, Arvind Sankar wrote:
> Hi, I think the definition of BOOT_PGT_SIZE in
> arch/x86/include/asm/boot.h is insufficient, especially after
> ca0e22d4f011 ("x86/boot/compressed/64: Always switch to own page table")
>
> Currently, it allocates 6 pages if KASLR is disabled, and either 17 or
> 19 pages depending on X86_VERBOSE_BOOTUP if KASLR is enabled.
>
> - The X86_VERBOSE_BOOTUP test shouldn't be done: that only disables
> debug messages, but warnings/errors are always output to VGA memory,
> so the two extra pages for mapping video RAM are always needed.
>
> - The calculation wasn't updated for X86_5LEVEL, which requires at least
> one more page for the P4D level, and in theory could require two extra
> pages for each of the 4 mappings (compressed kernel, output kernel,
> boot_params and command line), though that would require a system with
> truly ginormous amounts of RAM.
>
> - If KASLR is disabled, there are only 6 pages, but now that we're
> always setting up our own page table, we need 1+(2+2)*3 (one PGD, and
> two PUD and two PMD pages for kernel, boot_params and command line),
> and 2 more pages for the video RAM, and more for 5-level. Even for
> !RELOCATABLE, 13 pages might be needed.
>
> - SEV-ES needs one more page because it needs to do a PTE-level mapping
> for the GHCB page.
>
> - The static calculation is also busted because
> boot/compressed/{kaslr.c,acpi.c} can scan the setup data, EFI
> configuration tables and the EFI memmap, and none of these are
> accounted for. They used to be scanned while still on the
> firmware/bootloader page tables, but now our page tables have to cover
> them as well. Trying to add up the worst case for all of these, and
> anything else the compressed kernel might potentially access seems
> like a lost cause.
>
> We could do something similar to what the main kernel does with
> early_dynamic_pgts: map the compressed kernel at a fixed virtual
> address (in negative address space, say); recycle all the other mappings
> until we're done with decompression, and then map the output,
> boot_params and command line. The number of pages needed for this can be
> statically calculated, for 4-level paging we'd need 2 pages for the
> fixed mapping, 12 pages for the other three, and one PGD page.
>
> Thoughts?

Or just bump BOOT_PGT_SIZE to some largeish number?