Re: [PATCH v12] ARM: uncompress: Validate start of physical memory against passed DTB

From: Linus Walleij
Date: Fri Jan 08 2021 - 18:58:26 EST


On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 2:01 PM Geert Uytterhoeven
<geert+renesas@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Currently, the start address of physical memory is obtained by masking
> the program counter with a fixed mask of 0xf8000000. This mask value
> was chosen as a balance between the requirements of different platforms.
> However, this does require that the start address of physical memory is
> a multiple of 128 MiB, precluding booting Linux on platforms where this
> requirement is not fulfilled.
>
> Fix this limitation by validating the masked address against the memory
> information in the passed DTB. Only use the start address
> from DTB when masking would yield an out-of-range address, prefer the
> traditional method in all other cases. Note that this applies only to the
> explicitly passed DTB on modern systems, and not to a DTB appended to
> the kernel, or to ATAGS. The appended DTB may need to be augmented by
> information from ATAGS, which may need to rely on knowledge of the start
> address of physical memory itself.
>
> This allows to boot Linux on r7s9210/rza2mevb using the 64 MiB of SDRAM
> on the RZA2MEVB sub board, which is located at 0x0C000000 (CS3 space),
> i.e. not at a multiple of 128 MiB.
>
> Suggested-by: Nicolas Pitre <nico@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Suggested-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Acked-by: Nicolas Pitre <nico@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Sorry for the long delay in reading the patch :(

I really like the looks of this now, moreover it is very useful.
I suppose it is already in the patch tracker, but for the record:
Reviewed-by: Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@xxxxxxxxxx>

> + reg = fdt_getprop(fdt, offset, "linux,usable-memory", &len);

I suppose we already had a discussion of why this property
is undocumented? Or should we document it? Obviously
it is already in widespread use.

Yours,
Linus Walleij