Re: [PATCH qemu] x86: don't let decompressed kernel image clobber setup_data

From: Jason A. Donenfeld
Date: Sat Dec 31 2022 - 07:55:52 EST


On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 05:06:55PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>
>
> On 12/30/22 14:10, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 01:58:39PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> >> See the other thread fork. They have identified the problem already.
> >
> > Not sure I follow. Is there another thread where somebody worked out why
> > this 62meg limit was happening?
> >
> > Note that I sent v2/v3, to fix the original problem in a different way,
> > and if that looks good to the QEMU maintainers, then we can all be happy
> > with that. But I *haven't* addressed and still don't fully understand
> > why the 62meg limit applied to my v1 in the way it does. Did you find a
> > bug there to fix? If so, please do CC me.
> >
>
> Yes, you yourself posted the problem:
>
> > Then build qemu. Run it with `-kernel bzImage`, based on the kernel
> > built with the .config I attached.
> >
> > You'll see that the CPU triple faults when hitting this line:
> >
> > sd = (struct setup_data *)boot_params->hdr.setup_data;
> > while (sd) {
> > unsigned long sd_addr = (unsigned long)sd;
> >
> > kernel_add_identity_map(sd_addr, sd_addr + sizeof(*sd) + sd->len); <----
> > sd = (struct setup_data *)sd->next;
> > }
> >
> > , because it dereferences *sd. This does not happen if the decompressed
> > size of the kernel is < 62 megs.
> >
> > So that's the "big and pretty serious" bug that might be worthy of
> > investigation.
>
> This needs to be something like:
>
> kernel_add_identity_map(sd_addr, sd_addr + sizeof(*sd));
> kernel_add_identity_map(sd_addr + sizeof(*sd),
> sd_addr + sizeof(*sd) + sd->len);
>

Oh, right, duh. Thanks for spelling it out.

Jason