[PATCH] PPC64: large INITRD causes kernel not to boot [UPDATE]

From: Mark Bellon
Date: Tue Sep 06 2005 - 17:51:13 EST


In PPC64 there are number of problems in arch/ppc64/boot/main.c that prevent a kernel from making use of a large (greater than ~16MB) INITRD. This is 64 bit architecture and really large INITRD images should be possible.

Simply put the existing code has a fixed reservation (claim) address and once the kernel plus initrd image are large enough to pass this address all sorts of bad things occur. The fix is the dynamically establish the first claim address above the loaded kernel plus initrd (plus some "padding" and rounding). If PROG_START is defined this will be used as the minimum safe address - currently known to be 0x01400000 for the firmwares tested so far.

We've talked about this in linuxppc64-dev@xxxxxxxxxx and this is what seems to have settled out.

mark

Signed-off-by: Mark Bellon <mbellon@xxxxxxxxxx>

diff -Naur linux-2.6.13-orig/arch/ppc64/boot/main.c linux-2.6.13/arch/ppc64/boot/main.c
--- linux-2.6.13-orig/arch/ppc64/boot/main.c 2005-08-28 16:41:01.000000000 -0700
+++ linux-2.6.13/arch/ppc64/boot/main.c 2005-09-06 15:42:22.000000000 -0700
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
extern void printf(const char *fmt, ...);
extern int sprintf(char *buf, const char *fmt, ...);
void gunzip(void *, int, unsigned char *, int *);
-void *claim(unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int);
+void *claim(unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned long);
void flush_cache(void *, unsigned long);
void pause(void);
extern void exit(void);
@@ -31,7 +31,8 @@

/* Value picked to match that used by yaboot */
#define PROG_START 0x01400000
-#define RAM_END (256<<20) // Fixme: use OF */
+#define RAM_END (512<<20) // Fixme: use OF */
+#define ONE_MB 0x100000

char *avail_ram;
char *begin_avail, *end_avail;
@@ -40,6 +41,7 @@
unsigned int heap_max;

extern char _start[];
+extern char _end[];
extern char _vmlinux_start[];
extern char _vmlinux_end[];
extern char _initrd_start[];
@@ -73,13 +75,13 @@

#undef DEBUG

-static unsigned long claim_base = PROG_START;
+static unsigned long claim_base;

static unsigned long try_claim(unsigned long size)
{
unsigned long addr = 0;

- for(; claim_base < RAM_END; claim_base += 0x100000) {
+ for(; claim_base < RAM_END; claim_base += ONE_MB) {
#ifdef DEBUG
printf(" trying: 0x%08lx\n\r", claim_base);
#endif
@@ -110,7 +112,26 @@
if (getprop(chosen_handle, "stdin", &stdin, sizeof(stdin)) != 4)
exit();

- printf("\n\rzImage starting: loaded at 0x%x\n\r", (unsigned)_start);
+ printf("\n\rzImage starting: loaded at 0x%lx\n\r", (unsigned long) _start);
+
+ /*
+ * The first available claim_base must be above the end of the
+ * the loaded kernel wrapper file (_start to _end includes the
+ * initrd image if it is present) and rounded up to a nice
+ * 1 MB boundary for good measure.
+ */
+
+ claim_base = _ALIGN_UP((unsigned long)_end, ONE_MB);
+
+#if defined(PROG_START)
+ /*
+ * Maintain a "magic" minimum address. This keeps some older
+ * firmware platforms running.
+ */
+
+ if (claim_base < PROG_START)
+ claim_base = PROG_START;
+#endif

/*
* Now we try to claim some memory for the kernel itself
@@ -120,7 +141,7 @@
* size... In practice we add 1Mb, that is enough, but we should really
* consider fixing the Makefile to put a _raw_ kernel in there !
*/
- vmlinux_memsize += 0x100000;
+ vmlinux_memsize += ONE_MB;
printf("Allocating 0x%lx bytes for kernel ...\n\r", vmlinux_memsize);
vmlinux.addr = try_claim(vmlinux_memsize);
if (vmlinux.addr == 0) {