[PATCH 3/7] efi/libstub: Use ucs2_string library for UTF-16 to UTF-8 conversion

From: Ard Biesheuvel

Date: Sun Sep 06 2026 - 09:11:12 EST


Don't rely on sprintf() with a wide string conversion modifier to
convert the command line from UTF-16 to UTF-8. Instead, use the
existing ucs2 string library routine that does the same. Note that while
UEFI claims support for UTF-16, in practice it ignores surrogate pairs
entirely, and so the simplified UCS-2 character set (where each
character takes up exactly 2 bytes) is sufficient here.

This removes the only user of sprintf() in the EFI stub, so drop that
function as well.

While at it, make cmdline_addr a char* and remove the pointless casts.

Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/Makefile | 3 +-
drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/efi-stub-helper.c | 59 ++++++--------------
drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/vsprintf.c | 11 ----
3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 55 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/Makefile b/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/Makefile
index 77a2b2d74f3f..12c0c7deb5cb 100644
--- a/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/Makefile
+++ b/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/Makefile
@@ -66,7 +66,8 @@ KBUILD_AFLAGS := $(KBUILD_CFLAGS) -D__ASSEMBLY__
lib-y := efi-stub-helper.o gop.o secureboot.o tpm.o \
file.o mem.o random.o randomalloc.o pci.o \
skip_spaces.o lib-cmdline.o lib-ctype.o \
- alignedmem.o printk.o vsprintf.o
+ alignedmem.o printk.o vsprintf.o \
+ lib-ucs2_string.o

# include the stub's libfdt dependencies from lib/ when needed
libfdt-deps := fdt_rw.c fdt_ro.c fdt_wip.c fdt.c \
diff --git a/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/efi-stub-helper.c b/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/efi-stub-helper.c
index f27f2e1f0019..c221d67bfff6 100644
--- a/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/efi-stub-helper.c
+++ b/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/efi-stub-helper.c
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
#include <linux/efi.h>
#include <linux/kernel.h>
#include <linux/overflow.h>
+#include <linux/ucs2_string.h>
#include <asm/efi.h>
#include <asm/setup.h>

@@ -335,10 +336,10 @@ char *efi_convert_cmdline(efi_loaded_image_t *image)
const efi_char16_t *options = efi_table_attr(image, load_options);
u32 options_size = efi_table_attr(image, load_options_size);
int options_bytes = 0, safe_options_bytes = 0; /* UTF-8 bytes */
- unsigned long cmdline_addr = 0;
const efi_char16_t *s2;
bool in_quote = false;
efi_status_t status;
+ char *cmdline_addr;
u32 options_chars;

if (options_size > 0)
@@ -351,45 +352,18 @@ char *efi_convert_cmdline(efi_loaded_image_t *image)
if (options) {
s2 = options;
while (options_bytes < COMMAND_LINE_SIZE && options_chars--) {
- efi_char16_t c = *s2++;
-
- if (c < 0x80) {
- if (c == L'\0' || c == L'\n')
- break;
- if (c == L'"')
- in_quote = !in_quote;
- else if (!in_quote && isspace((char)c))
- safe_options_bytes = options_bytes;
-
- options_bytes++;
- continue;
- }
-
- /*
- * Get the number of UTF-8 bytes corresponding to a
- * UTF-16 character.
- * The first part handles everything in the BMP.
- */
- options_bytes += 2 + (c >= 0x800);
- /*
- * Add one more byte for valid surrogate pairs. Invalid
- * surrogates will be replaced with 0xfffd and take up
- * only 3 bytes.
- */
- if ((c & 0xfc00) == 0xd800) {
- /*
- * If the very last word is a high surrogate,
- * we must ignore it since we can't access the
- * low surrogate.
- */
- if (!options_chars) {
- options_bytes -= 3;
- } else if ((*s2 & 0xfc00) == 0xdc00) {
- options_bytes++;
- options_chars--;
- s2++;
- }
- }
+ efi_char16_t c[2] = { *s2++, L'\0' };
+
+ if (c[0] == L'\0' || c[0] == L'\n')
+ break;
+
+ // Check whether the current position is a safe
+ // truncation point
+ in_quote ^= (c[0] == L'"');
+ if (!in_quote && isspace((char)c[0]))
+ safe_options_bytes = options_bytes;
+
+ options_bytes += ucs2_utf8size(c);
}
if (options_bytes >= COMMAND_LINE_SIZE) {
options_bytes = safe_options_bytes;
@@ -405,10 +379,9 @@ char *efi_convert_cmdline(efi_loaded_image_t *image)
if (status != EFI_SUCCESS)
return NULL;

- snprintf((char *)cmdline_addr, options_bytes, "%.*ls",
- options_bytes - 1, options);
+ ucs2_as_utf8(cmdline_addr, options, options_bytes);

- return (char *)cmdline_addr;
+ return cmdline_addr;
}

/**
diff --git a/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/vsprintf.c b/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/vsprintf.c
index 71c71c222346..dba136679172 100644
--- a/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/vsprintf.c
+++ b/drivers/firmware/efi/libstub/vsprintf.c
@@ -551,14 +551,3 @@ int vsnprintf(char *buf, size_t size, const char *fmt, va_list ap)

return pos;
}
-
-int snprintf(char *buf, size_t size, const char *fmt, ...)
-{
- va_list args;
- int i;
-
- va_start(args, fmt);
- i = vsnprintf(buf, size, fmt, args);
- va_end(args);
- return i;
-}
--
2.47.3