Re: [PATCH] x86: efi: avoid BUILD_BUG_ON() for non-constant p4d_index

From: Arvind Sankar
Date: Mon Jan 18 2021 - 16:44:14 EST


On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 09:24:09PM +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > > > As a matter of fact, it seems like the four assertions could be combined
> > > > into:
> > > > BUILD_BUG_ON((EFI_VA_END & P4D_MASK) != (MODULES_END & P4D_MASK));
> > > > BUILD_BUG_ON((EFI_VA_START & P4D_MASK) != (EFI_VA_END & P4D_MASK));
> > > > instead of separately asserting they're the same PGD entry and the same
> > > > P4D entry.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > I actually don't quite get the MODULES_END check -- Ard, do you know
> > > what that's for?
> > >
> >
> > Maybe Boris remembers? He wrote the original code for the 'new' EFI
> > page table layout.
>
> That was added by Kirill for 5-level pgtables:
>
> e981316f5604 ("x86/efi: Add 5-level paging support")

That just duplicates the existing pgd_index() check for the p4d_index()
as well. It looks like the original commit adding
efi_sync_low_kernel_mappings() used to copy upto the PGD entry including
MODULES_END:
d2f7cbe7b26a7 ("x86/efi: Runtime services virtual mapping")
and then Matt changed that when creating efi_mm:
67a9108ed4313 ("x86/efi: Build our own page table structures")
to use EFI_VA_END instead but have a check that EFI_VA_END is in the
same entry as MODULES_END.

AFAICT, MODULES_END is only relevant as being something that happens to
be in the top 512GiB, and -1ul would be clearer.

>
> Documentation/x86/x86_64/mm.rst should explain the pagetable layout:
>
> ffffff8000000000 | -512 GB | ffffffeeffffffff | 444 GB | ... unused hole
> ffffffef00000000 | -68 GB | fffffffeffffffff | 64 GB | EFI region mapping space
> ffffffff00000000 | -4 GB | ffffffff7fffffff | 2 GB | ... unused hole
> ffffffff80000000 | -2 GB | ffffffff9fffffff | 512 MB | kernel text mapping, mapped to physical address 0
> ffffffff80000000 |-2048 MB | | |
> ffffffffa0000000 |-1536 MB | fffffffffeffffff | 1520 MB | module mapping space
> ffffffffff000000 | -16 MB | | |
> FIXADDR_START | ~-11 MB | ffffffffff5fffff | ~0.5 MB | kernel-internal fixmap range, variable size and offset
>
> That thing which starts at -512 GB above is the last PGD on the
> pagetable. In it, between -4G and -68G there are 64G which are the EFI
> region mapping space for runtime services.
>
> Frankly I'm not sure what this thing is testing because the EFI VA range
> is hardcoded and I can't imagine it being somewhere else *except* in the
> last PGD.

It's just so that someone doesn't just change the #define's for
EFI_VA_END/START and think that it will work, I guess.

Another reasonable option, for example, would be to reserve an entire
PGD entry, allowing everything but the PGD level to be shared, and
adding the EFI PGD to the pgd_list and getting rid of
efi_sync_low_kernel_mappings() altogether. There aren't that many PGD
entries still unused though, so this is probably not worth it.

>
> Lemme add Kirill for clarification.
>
> --
> Regards/Gruss,
> Boris.
>
> https://people.kernel.org/tglx/notes-about-netiquette