Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] efi: Implement generic zboot support

[Gerd Hoffmann]

On Sun, Apr 16, 2023 at 02:07:26PM +0200, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> This series is a proof-of-concept that implements support for the EFI
> zboot decompressor for x86. It replaces the ordinary decompressor, and
> instead, performs the decompression, KASLR randomization and the 4/5
> level paging switch while running in the execution context of EFI.
> 
> This simplifies things substantially, and makes it straight-forward to
> abide by stricter future requirements related to the use of writable and
> executable memory under EFI, which will come into effect on x86 systems
> that are certified as being 'more secure', and ship with an even shinier
> Windows sticker.
> 
> This is an alternative approach to the work being proposed by Evgeny [0]
> that makes rather radical changes to the existing decompressor, which
> has accumulated too many features already, e.g., related to confidential
> compute etc.
> 
> EFI zboot images can be booted in two ways:
> - by EFI firmware, which loads and starts it as an ordinary EFI
>   application, just like the existing EFI stub (with which it shares
>   most of its code);
> - by a non-EFI loader that parses the image header for the compression
>   metadata, and decompresses the image into memory and boots it.

I like the idea to have all EFI archs handle compressed kernels the same
way.

But given that going EFI-only on x86 isn't a realistic option for
distros today this isn't really an alternative for Evgeny's patch
series, we have to fix the existing bzImage decompressor too.

> Realistically, the second option is unlikely to ever be used on x86,

What would be needed to do so?  Teach kexec-tools and grub2 parse and
load zboot kernels I guess?

take care,
  Gerd