Re: [PATCH 0/5] arm64/mm: remap crash kernel with base pages even if rodata_full disabled

[Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>]

On Sun, Aug 28, 2022 at 04:37:29PM +0800, Baoquan He wrote:
> On 08/25/22 at 10:48am, Mike Rapoport wrote:
> ...... 
> > > > There were several rounds of discussion how to remap with base pages only
> > > > the crash kernel area, the latest one here:
> > > > 
> > > > https://lore.kernel.org/all/1656777473-73887-1-git-send-email-guanghuifeng@linux.alibaba.com
> > > > 
> > > > and this is my attempt to allow having both large pages in the linear map
> > > > and protection for the crash kernel memory.
> > > > 
> > > > For server systems it is important to protect crash kernel memory for
> > > > post-mortem analysis, and for that protection to work the crash kernel
> > > > memory should be mapped with base pages in the linear map. 
> > > > 
> > > > On the systems with ZONE_DMA/DMA32 enabled, crash kernel reservation
> > > > happens after the linear map is created and the current code forces using
> > > > base pages for the entire linear map, which results in performance
> > > > degradation.
> > > > 
> > > > These patches enable remapping of the crash kernel area with base pages
> > > > while keeping large pages in the rest of the linear map.
> > > > 
> > > > The idea is to align crash kernel reservation to PUD boundaries, remap that
> > > > PUD and then free the extra memory.
> > > 
> > > Hi Mike,
> > > 
> > > Thanks for the effort to work on this issue. While I have to say this
> > > isnt's good because it can only be made relying on a prerequisite that
> > > there's big enough memory. If on a system, say 2G memory, it's not easy
> > > to succeed on getting one 1G memory. While we only require far smaller
> > > region than 1G, e.g about 200M which should be easy to get. So the way
> > > taken in this patchset is too quirky and will cause regression on
> > > systemswith small memory. This kind of sytems with small memory exists
> > > widely on virt guest instance.
> > 
> > I don't agree there is a regression. If the PUD-aligned allocation fails,
> > there is a fallback to the allocation of the exact size requested for crash
> > kernel. This allocation just won't get protected.
> 
> Sorry, I misunderstood it. I just went through the log and didn't
> look into codes.
> 
> But honestly, if we accept the fallback which doesn't do the protection,
> we should be able to take off the protection completely, right?
> Otherwise, the reservation code is a little complicated.

We don't do protection of the crash kernel for most architectures
supporting kexec ;-)

My goal was to allow large systems with ZONE_DMA/DMA32 have block mappings
in the linear map and crash kernel protection without breaking backward
compatibility for the existing systems.

> > Also please note, that the changes are only for the case when user didn't
> > force base-size pages in the linear map, so anything that works now will
> > work the same way with this set applied.
> >  
> > > The crashkernel reservation happens after linear map because the
> > > reservation needs to know the dma zone boundary, arm64_dma_phys_limit.
> > > If we can deduce that before bootmem_init(), the reservation can be
> > > done before linear map. I will make an attempt on that. If still can't
> > > be accepted, we would like to take off the crashkernel region protection
> > > on arm64 for now.
> > 
> > I doubt it would be easy because arm64_dma_phys_limit is determined after
> > parsing of the device tree and there might be memory allocations of
> > possibly unmapped memory during the parsing.
> 
> I have sent out the patches with an attempt, it's pretty straightforward
> and simple. Because arm64 only has one exception, namely Raspberry Pi 4,
> on which some peripherals can only address 30bit range. That is a corner
> case, to be honest. And kdump is a necessary feature on server, but may
> not be so expected on Raspberry Pi 4, a system for computer education
> and hobbyists. And kdump only cares whether the dump target devices can
> address 32bit range, namely storage device or network card on server.
> If finally confirmed that storage devices can only address 30bit range
> on Raspberry Pi 4, people still can have crashkernel=xM@yM method to
> reserve crashkernel regions.

I hope you are right and Raspberry Pi 4 is the only system that limits
DMA'able range to 30 bits. But with diversity of arm64 chips and boards I
won't be surprised that there are other variants with a similar problem.
 
> Thanks
> Baoquan
> 

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Mike.