Re: [RFC PATCH v4 26/28] x86: Allow kexec to be used with SME

[Dave Young]

On 03/06/17 at 11:58am, Tom Lendacky wrote:
> On 3/1/2017 3:25 AM, Dave Young wrote:
> > Hi Tom,
> 
> Hi Dave,
> 
> > 
> > On 02/17/17 at 10:43am, Tom Lendacky wrote:
> > > On 2/17/2017 9:57 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 09:47:55AM -0600, Tom Lendacky wrote:
> > > > > Provide support so that kexec can be used to boot a kernel when SME is
> > > > > enabled.
> > > > 
> > > > Is the point of kexec and kdump to ehh, dump memory ? But if the
> > > > rest of the memory is encrypted you won't get much, will you?
> > > 
> > > Kexec can be used to reboot a system without going back through BIOS.
> > > So you can use kexec without using kdump.
> > > 
> > > For kdump, just taking a quick look, the option to enable memory
> > > encryption can be provided on the crash kernel command line and then
> > 
> > Is there a simple way to get the SME status? Probably add some sysfs
> > file for this purpose.
> 
> Currently there is not.  I can look at adding something, maybe just the
> sme_me_mask value, which if non-zero, would indicate SME is active.
> 
> > 
> > > crash kernel can would be able to copy the memory decrypted if the
> > > pagetable is set up properly. It looks like currently ioremap_cache()
> > > is used to map the old memory page.  That might be able to be changed
> > > to a memremap() so that the encryption bit is set in the mapping. That
> > > will mean that memory that is not marked encrypted (EFI tables, swiotlb
> > > memory, etc) would not be read correctly.
> > 
> > Manage to store info about those ranges which are not encrypted so that
> > memremap can handle them?
> 
> I can look into whether something can be done in this area. Any input
> you can provide as to what would be the best way/place to store the
> range info so kdump can make use of it, would be greatly appreciated.

Previously to support efi runtime in kexec, I passed some efi
infomation via setup_data, see below userspace kexec-tools commit:
e1ffc9e9a0769e1f54185003102e9bec428b84e8, it was what Boris mentioned
about the setup_data use case for kexec.

Suppose you have successfully tested kexec reboot, so the EFI tables you
mentioned should be those area in old mem for copying /proc/vmcore? If
only EFI tables and swiotlb maybe not worth to passing those stuff
across kexec reboot.

I have more idea about this for now..
> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Would it make sense to include some printk to the user if they
> > > > are setting up kdump that they won't get anything out of it?
> > > 
> > > Probably a good idea to add something like that.
> > 
> > It will break kdump functionality, it should be fixed instead of
> > just adding printk to warn user..
> 
> I do want kdump to work. I'll investigate further what can be done in
> this area.

Thanks a lot!

Dave