• Vivek Goyal's avatar
    [PATCH] kdump: Save parameter segment in protected mode (x86) · 484b90c4
    Vivek Goyal authored
    o With introduction of kexec as boot-loader, the assumption that parameter
      segment will always be loaded at lower address than kernel and will be
      addressable by early bootup page tables is no longer valid. In kexec on
      panic case parameter segment might well be loaded beyond kernel image and
      might not be addressable by early boot page tables.
    o This case might hit in the scenario where user has reserved a chunk of
      memory for second kernel, for example 16MB to 64MB, and has also built
      second kernel for physical memory location 16MB. In this case kexec has no
      choice but to load the parameter segment at a higher address than new kernel
      image at safe location where new kernel does not stomp it.
    o Though problem should automatically go away once relocatable kernel for i386
      is in place and kexec can determine the location of new kernel at run time
      and load parameter segment at lower address than kernel image. But till then
      this patch can go in (assuming it does not break something else).
    o This patch moves up the boot parameter saving code. Now boot parameters
      are copied out in protected mode before page tables are initialized. This
      will ensure that parameter segment is always addressable irrespective of
      its physical location.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarVivek Goyal <vgoyal@in.ibm.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
    484b90c4
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