Re: [PATCH 1/2] kho: skip zero-sized lowmem and global bootmem areas

From: Pasha Tatashin

Date: Tue Nov 03 2026 - 14:48:53 EST


On 11-03 13:49, Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) wrote:
> The lowmem and the global bootmem areas can have zero size, for example
> when none or all of the memory is below ARCH_LOW_ADDRESS_LIMIT, or when
> either of those areas is explicitly set to zero with kho_bootmem=.
>
> For a zero-sized allocation memblock returns an address without reserving
> anything, and that empty area is recorded in kho_bootmem. If there is no
> memory below ARCH_LOW_ADDRESS_LIMIT, allocation of the empty lowmem area
> fails and KHO gets disabled.
>
> Extract a helper that checks for zero size and allocates memory from
> memblock, and use it to skip empty areas the same way as empty per-node
> areas are skipped.
>
> Fixes: 3dc92c311498 ("kexec: add Kexec HandOver (KHO) generation helpers")
> Reported-by: Chen Pei <cp0613@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20261026131851.9942-1-cp0613@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Signed-off-by: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) <rppt@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c | 61 ++++++++++++++++++--------------------
> 1 file changed, 29 insertions(+), 32 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c b/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c
> index 6f1f55fe31819..f268c57413a7e 100644
> --- a/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c
> +++ b/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c
> @@ -820,6 +820,27 @@ bool kho_bootmem_overlap(phys_addr_t phys, size_t size)
> return false;
> }
>
> +static int __init kho_reserve_bootmem_area(int *idx, phys_addr_t size,
> + phys_addr_t end, int nid)
> +{
> + phys_addr_t addr;
> + int i = *idx;
> +
> + if (!size)
> + return 0;
> +
> + addr = memblock_alloc_range_nid(size, BOOTMEM_ALIGNMENT_BYTES, 0, end,
> + nid, true);
> + if (!addr)
> + return -ENOMEM;
> +
> + kho_bootmem[i].addr = addr;
> + kho_bootmem[i].size = size;
> + *idx = i + 1;
> +
> + return 0;
> +}
> +
> /**
> * kho_reserve_bootmem - Reserve a contiguous chunk of memory for kexec
> *
> @@ -832,7 +853,7 @@ bool kho_bootmem_overlap(phys_addr_t phys, size_t size)
> static void __init kho_reserve_bootmem(void)
> {
> int nid, i = 0, max_nr_bootmem;
> - phys_addr_t addr, size;
> + phys_addr_t size;
>
> if (!kho_enable)
> return;
> @@ -852,56 +873,32 @@ static void __init kho_reserve_bootmem(void)
> * reserve bootmem area in low memory for lowmem allocations in the
> * next kernel
> */
> - size = bootmem_size_lowmem;
> - addr = memblock_phys_alloc_range(size, BOOTMEM_ALIGNMENT_BYTES, 0,
> - ARCH_LOW_ADDRESS_LIMIT);
> - if (!addr) {
> + if (kho_reserve_bootmem_area(&i, bootmem_size_lowmem,
> + ARCH_LOW_ADDRESS_LIMIT, NUMA_NO_NODE)) {
> pr_err("Failed to reserve lowmem bootmem\n");

You are adding a helper that returns an error code and then ignoring it
at all call sites. Even though it can only return -ENOMEM right now,
dropping the return value is not good practice.

Either capture and print the error in pr_err(), or even better have
kho_reserve_bootmem_area() return bool and move the pr_err()
inside it, using nid != NUMA_NO_NODE for per-node areas and a name
argument for "lowmem"/"global".