• Ard Biesheuvel's avatar
    efi/libstub/arm64: Replace 'preferred' offset with alignment check · 82046702
    Ard Biesheuvel authored
    The notion of a 'preferred' load offset for the kernel dates back to the
    times when the kernel's primary mapping overlapped with the linear region,
    and memory below it could not be used at all.
    
    Today, the arm64 kernel does not really care where it is loaded in physical
    memory, as long as the alignment requirements are met, and so there is no
    point in unconditionally moving the kernel to a new location in memory at
    boot. Instead, we can
    - check for a KASLR seed, and randomly reallocate the kernel if one is
      provided
    - otherwise, check whether the alignment requirements are met for the
      current placement of the kernel, and just run it in place if they are
    - finally, do an ordinary page allocation and reallocate the kernel to a
      suitably aligned buffer anywhere in memory.
    
    By the same reasoning, there is no need to take TEXT_OFFSET into account
    if it is a round multiple of the minimum alignment, which is the usual
    case for relocatable kernels with TEXT_OFFSET randomization disabled.
    Otherwise, it suffices to use the relative misaligment of TEXT_OFFSET
    when reallocating the kernel.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarArd Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
    82046702
arm64-stub.c 3.92 KB