Re: [PATCH v4 00/10] kdump: reduce vmcore size and capture time

From: Wandun

Date: Wed Jul 22 2026 - 08:12:38 EST




On 6/30/26 15:47, Wandun Chen wrote:
> From: Wandun Chen <chenwandun@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> On SoCs that carve out large firmware-owned reserved memory (GPU
> firmware, DSP, modem, camera ISP, NPU, ...), kdump currently dumps
> those carveouts as part of system RAM even though their contents are
> firmware state that is not useful for kernel crash analysis.
>
> This series introduces an opt-in 'dumpable' flag [1] on struct
> reserved_mem and uses it to filter the elfcorehdr PT_LOAD ranges on
> DT-based architectures (arm64, riscv, loongarch). By default reserved
> regions are treated as non-dumpable; CMA regions are explicitly opted
> in because their pages are returned to the buddy allocator and may
> carry key crash-analysis data.
>
> Since the reserved memory regions are filtered out, the vmcore is
> smaller in size and faster to produce. The reserved memory
> has already been filtered out in x86; the optimizations in this series
> apply to systems that use DTS such as arm64/riscv/loongarch.
>
> The series is organized as follows:
> Patches 1-4: Small prepare changes and cleanups.
> Patches 5: Add dumpable flag to opt-in vmcore.
> Patches 6: Append /memreserve/ entries into reserved_mem[].
> Patch 7: Add generic kdump helpers.
> Patches 8-10: Wire the helpers into arm64, riscv and loongarch kdump
> elfcorehdr preparation.

Hi Rob,

Gentle ping on this series. Patches 01, 05 and 07-10 have been
acked (thanks Pratyush, Will and Marek), and the comments there
have been addressed in my local tree.

Patch 02/03/04/06 are the core of: reserved_mem changes, they are still
pending review on the devicetree side.

Could you take a look when you have a chance? Happy to respin and
address any feedback.

Best regards,
Wandun


>
> v3 --> v4:
> 1. Rebase this series on v7.2-rc1.
> 2. Add two cleanup patches (patch 02/03).
> 3. Simplify patch 03 to avoid checking whether initial_boot_params is
> NULL multiple times, suggested by Rob.
>
> v2 --> v3:
> 1. Fix out-of-bounds issue if device tree lacks /reserved-memory node.[2]
> 2. Fix UAF issue when alloc_reserved_mem_array() fails.
> 3. Add some prepare patches.
>
> v1 --> v2:
> 1. v1 added an opt-out DT property ('linux,no-dump'). Per Rob's
> feedback [1], v2 drop that property and exclude reserve memory
> by default.
> 2. Split some prepared patches from the original patches.
> 3. Address coding-style comments on patch 5 from Rob.
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260506144542.GA2072596-robh@xxxxxxxxxx/
> [2] https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260520091844.592753-1-chenwandun%40lixiang.com?part=4
>
>
> Wandun Chen (10):
> kexec/crash: provide crash_exclude_mem_range() stub when
> CONFIG_CRASH_DUMP=n
> of: reserved_mem: dedup and relocate reserved-memory messages
> of: reserved_mem: skip late scan when no regions are reserved
> of: reserved_mem: split alloc_reserved_mem_array() from
> fdt_scan_reserved_mem_late()
> of: reserved_mem: add dumpable flag to opt-in vmcore
> of: reserved_mem: save /memreserve/ entries into the reserved_mem
> array
> of: reserved_mem: add kdump helpers to exclude non-dumpable regions
> arm64: kdump: exclude non-dumpable reserved memory regions from vmcore
> riscv: kdump: exclude non-dumpable reserved memory regions from vmcore
> loongarch: kdump: exclude non-dumpable reserved memory regions from
> vmcore
>
> arch/arm64/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c | 6 ++
> arch/loongarch/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c | 6 ++
> arch/riscv/kernel/machine_kexec_file.c | 4 +
> drivers/of/fdt.c | 11 ++-
> drivers/of/of_private.h | 3 +
> drivers/of/of_reserved_mem.c | 108 ++++++++++++++++++---
> include/linux/crash_core.h | 6 ++
> include/linux/of_reserved_mem.h | 15 +++
> kernel/dma/contiguous.c | 1 +
> 9 files changed, 142 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
>