Re: [PATCH] kho: Prevent reuse of preserved pages after a reservation failure

[Mike Rapoport]

Hi,

On Tue, Nov 10, 2026 at 11:09:30PM -0800, Chris Down wrote:
> kho_preserved_memory_reserve() reserves each range of preserved memory
> in memblock and marks it noinit, but ignores both return values. Either
> can fail when memblock has to grow its reserved array and can't find
> room, which at this point in boot it may only take from KHO bootmem.

Is it an LLM analysis or you seen this happen?

> The boot then goes on as if the range were reserved, and two things
> can follow:
 
> - If the reservation failed, memblock_free_all() hands the range to the
>   page allocator with the previous kernel's data still in it, while its
>   KHO user still expects to restore it. A memfd preserved through LUO
>   can then get back pages that belong to someone else. Oh dear!
> - If only the noinit marking failed, the struct pages can be
>   initialised later, wiping the KHO magic, so restoring the range fails.
> 
> Dropping the handover at this point isn't safe either. reserve_mem=
> revives its regions from the handover before mm_core_init(), and
> relies on this walk to reserve them.

reserve_mem_kho_revive() can memblock_reserve() its memory itself and we
can carry on, can't we?
 
> Carrying on could hand out private data, so let's panic if either call
> fails.
> 
> Fixes: fc33e4b44b27 ("kexec: enable KHO support for memory preservation")
> Signed-off-by: Chris Down <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c | 11 ++++++++---
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c b/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c
> index eeec298aa9d6..0faa21ebb0cf 100644
> --- a/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c
> +++ b/kernel/liveupdate/kexec_handover.c
> @@ -629,9 +629,14 @@ static int __init kho_preserved_memory_reserve(unsigned long key, void *data)
>  	sz = 1UL << (order + PAGE_SHIFT);
>  	page = kho_get_preserved_page(phys, order);
>  
> -	/* Reserve the memory preserved in KHO in memblock */
> -	memblock_reserve(phys, sz);
> -	memblock_reserved_mark_noinit(phys, sz);
> +	/*
> +	 * Reserve the memory preserved in KHO in memblock. It's too late to
> +	 * drop the handover if that fails: reserve_mem may already have revived
> +	 * regions from it.
> +	 */
> +	if (memblock_reserve(phys, sz) || memblock_reserved_mark_noinit(phys, sz))
> +		panic("KHO: failed to reserve preserved memory %pa+%#llx\n",
> +		      &phys, sz);
>  	info.magic = KHO_PAGE_MAGIC;
>  	info.order = order;
>  	page->private = info.page_private;
> 
> base-commit: a0dc8eddbfdb6dd9c5c2b70eb66ab49cb1978425
> -- 
> 2.54.0
> 

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Mike.