On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 2:11 PM David Hildenbrand [off-list ref] wrote:

On 01.05.20 22:12, Dan Williams wrote:

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Consider the case of EFI Special Purpose (SP) Memory that is
marked EFI Conventional Memory with the SP attribute. In that case the
firmware memory map marked it as conventional RAM, but the kernel
optionally marks it as System RAM vs Soft Reserved. The 2008 patch
simply does not consider that case. I'm not sure strict textualism
works for coding decisions.

I am no expert on that matter (esp EFI). But looking at the users of
firmware_map_add_early(), the single user is in arch/x86/kernel/e820.c
. So the single source of /sys/firmware/memmap is (besides hotplug) e820.

"'e820_table_firmware': the original firmware version passed to us by
the bootloader - not modified by the kernel. ... inform the user about
the firmware's notion of memory layout via /sys/firmware/memmap"
(arch/x86/kernel/e820.c)

How is the EFI Special Purpose (SP) Memory represented in e820?
/sys/firmware/memmap is really simple: just dump in e820. No policies IIUC.

e820 now has a Soft Reserved translation for this which means "try to
reserve, but treat as System RAM is ok too". It seems generically
useful to me that the toggle for determining whether Soft Reserved or
System RAM shows up /sys/firmware/memmap is a determination that
policy can make. The kernel need not preemptively block it.

So, I think I have to clarify something here. We do have two ways to kexec

1. kexec_load(): User space (kexec-tools) crafts the memmap (e.g., using
/sys/firmware/memmap on x86-64) and selects memory where to place the
kexec images (e.g., using /proc/iomem)

2. kexec_file_load(): The kernel reuses the (basically) raw firmware
memmap and selects memory where to place kexec images.

We are talking about changing 1, to behave like 2 in regards to
dax/kmem. 2. does currently not add any hotplugged memory to the
fixed-up e820, and it should be fixed regarding hotplugged DIMMs that
would appear in e820 after a reboot.

Now, all these policy discussions are nice and fun, but I don't really
see a good reason to (ab)use /sys/firmware/memmap for that (e.g., parent
properties). If you want to be able to make this configurable, then
e.g., add a way to configure this in the kernel (for example along with
kmem) to make 1. and 2. behave the same way. Otherwise, you really only
can change 1.

That's clearer.

Now, let's clarify what I want regarding virtio-mem:

1. kexec should not add virtio-mem memory to the initial firmware
   memmap. The driver has to be in charge as discussed.
2. kexec should not place kexec images onto virtio-mem memory. That
   would end badly.
3. kexec should still dump virtio-mem memory via kdump.

Ok, but then seems to say to me that dax/kmem is a different type of
(driver managed) than virtio-mem and it's confusing to try to apply
the same meaning. Why not just call your type for the distinct type it
is "System RAM (virtio-mem)" and let any other driver managed memory
follow the same "System RAM ($driver)" format if it wants?