From: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
To: James Morse <james.morse@arm.com>
Cc: Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@arm.com>,
Catalin Marinas <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
Bhupesh Sharma <bhsharma@redhat.com>,
kexec@lists.infradead.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>,
linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] kexec: Prevent removal of memory in use by a loaded kexec image
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 15:13:28 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <80e4d1d7-f493-3f66-f700-86f18002d692@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <34274b02-60ba-eb78-eacd-6dc1146ed3cd@arm.com>
> Adding a sentence about the way kexec load works may help, the first paragraph
> would read:
>
> | Kexec allows user-space to specify the address that the kexec image should be
> | loaded to. Because this memory may be in use, an image loaded for kexec is not
> | stored in place, instead its segments are scattered through memory, and are
> | re-assembled when needed. In the meantime, the target memory may have been
> | removed.
>
> Do you think thats clearer?
Yes, very much. Maybe add, that the target is described by user space
during kexec_load() and that user space - right now - parses /proc/iomem
to find applicable system memory.
> [...]
>
>>> Load kexec:
>>> | root@vm:/sys/devices/system/memory# kexec -l /root/bzImage --reuse-cmdline
>>>
>>
>> I assume this will trigger
>>
>> kexec_load -> do_kexec_load -> kimage_load_segment ->
>> kimage_load_normal_segment -> kimage_alloc_page -> kimage_alloc_pages
>>
>> Which will just allocate a bunch of pages and mark them reserved.
>>
>> Now, AFAIKs, all allocations will be unmovable. So none of the kexec
>> segment allocations will actually end up on your DIMM (as it is onlined
>> online_movable).
>>
>> So, the loaded image (with its segments) from user won't be problematic
>> and not get placed on your DIMM.
>>
>>
>> Now, the problematic part is (via man kexec_load) "mem and memsz specify
>> a physical address range that is the target of the copy."
>>
>> So the place where the image will be "assembled" at when doing the
>> reboot. Understood :)
>
> Yup.
>
> [...]
>
>> I wonder if we should instead make the "kexec -e" fail. It tries to
>> touch random system memory.
>
> Heh, isn't touching random system memory what kexec does?!
Having a racy user interface that can trigger kernel crashes feels very
wrong. We should limit the impact.
>
> Its all described to user-space as 'System RAM'. Teaching it to probe
> /sys/devices/memory/... would require a user-space change.
I think we should really rename hotplugged memory on all architectures.
Especially also relevant for virtio-mem/hyper-v balloon, where some
pieces of (hotplugged )memory blocks are partially unavailable and
should not be touched - accessing them results in unpredictable behavior
(e.g., crashes or discarded writes).
[...]
>> Will probably need some thought. But it will actually also bail out when
>> user space passes wrong physical memory addresses, instead of
>> triple-faulting silently.
>
> With this change, the reboot(LINUX_REBOOT_CMD_KEXEC), call would fail. This
> thing doesn't usually return, so we're likely to trigger error-handling that has
> never run before.
>
> (Last time I debugged one of these, it turned out kexec had taken the network
> interfaces down, meaning the nfsroot was no longer accessible)
>
> How can user-space know whether kexec is going to succeed, or fail like this?
> Any loaded kexec kernel could secretly be in this broken state.
>
> Can user-space know what caused this to become unreliable? (without reading the
> kernel source)
>
>
> Given kexec can be unloaded by user-space, I think its better to prevent us
> getting into the broken state, preferably giving the hint that kexec us using
> that memory. The user can 'kexec -u', then retry removing the memory.
>
> I think forbidding the memory-offline is simpler for user-space to deal with.
I thought about this over the weekend, and I don't think it's the right
approach.
1. It's racy. If memory is getting offlined/unplugged just while user
space is about to trigger the kexec_load(), you end up with the very
same triple-fault.
2. It's semantically wrong. kexec does not need online memory ("managed
by the buddy"), but still you disallow offlining memory.
I would really much rather want to see user-space choosing boot memory
(e.g., renaming hotplugged memory on all architectures), and checking
during "kexec -e" if the selected memory is actually "there", before
trying to write to it.
--
Thanks,
David / dhildenb
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-03-30 13:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 92+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-03-26 18:07 [PATCH 0/3] kexec/memory_hotplug: Prevent removal and accidental use James Morse
2020-03-26 18:07 ` [PATCH 1/3] kexec: Prevent removal of memory in use by a loaded kexec image James Morse
2020-03-27 0:43 ` Anshuman Khandual
2020-03-27 2:54 ` Baoquan He
2020-03-27 15:46 ` James Morse
2020-03-27 2:34 ` Baoquan He
2020-03-27 9:30 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-27 16:56 ` James Morse
2020-03-27 17:06 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-27 18:07 ` James Morse
2020-03-27 18:52 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-30 13:00 ` James Morse
2020-03-30 13:13 ` David Hildenbrand [this message]
2020-03-30 17:17 ` James Morse
2020-03-30 18:14 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-10 19:10 ` Andrew Morton
2020-04-11 3:44 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-11 9:30 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2020-04-11 9:58 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-12 5:35 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-12 8:08 ` Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2020-04-12 19:52 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-12 20:37 ` Bhupesh SHARMA
2020-04-13 2:37 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-13 13:15 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-13 23:01 ` Andrew Morton
2020-04-14 6:13 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-14 6:40 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-14 6:51 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-14 8:00 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-14 9:22 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-14 9:37 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-14 14:39 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-14 14:49 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-15 2:35 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-16 13:31 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-16 14:02 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-16 14:09 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-16 14:36 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-16 14:47 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-21 13:29 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-21 13:57 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-21 13:59 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-21 14:30 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-22 9:17 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-22 9:24 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-22 9:57 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-22 10:05 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-22 10:36 ` Baoquan He
2020-04-14 9:16 ` Dave Young
2020-04-14 9:38 ` Dave Young
2020-04-14 7:05 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-14 16:55 ` James Morse
2020-04-14 17:41 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-15 20:33 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-22 12:28 ` James Morse
2020-04-22 15:25 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-22 16:40 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-23 16:29 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-24 7:39 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-24 7:41 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-05-01 16:55 ` James Morse
2020-03-26 18:07 ` [PATCH 2/3] mm/memory_hotplug: Allow arch override of non boot memory resource names James Morse
2020-03-27 9:59 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-27 15:39 ` James Morse
2020-03-30 13:23 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-30 17:17 ` James Morse
2020-04-02 5:49 ` Dave Young
2020-04-02 6:12 ` piliu
2020-04-14 17:21 ` James Morse
2020-04-15 20:36 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-22 12:14 ` James Morse
2020-05-09 0:45 ` Andrew Morton
2020-05-11 8:35 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-26 18:07 ` [PATCH 3/3] arm64: memory: Give hotplug memory a different resource name James Morse
2020-03-30 19:01 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-04-15 20:37 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-22 12:14 ` James Morse
2020-03-27 2:11 ` [PATCH 0/3] kexec/memory_hotplug: Prevent removal and accidental use Baoquan He
2020-03-27 15:40 ` James Morse
2020-03-27 9:27 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-27 15:42 ` James Morse
2020-03-30 13:18 ` David Hildenbrand
2020-03-30 13:55 ` Baoquan He
2020-03-30 17:17 ` James Morse
2020-03-31 3:46 ` Dave Young
2020-04-14 17:31 ` James Morse
2020-03-31 3:38 ` Dave Young
2020-04-15 20:29 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-22 12:14 ` James Morse
2020-04-22 13:04 ` Eric W. Biederman
2020-04-22 15:40 ` James Morse
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