[RFC PATCH 2/9] efi: Tag memblock reservations of boot services regions as RSRV_KERN

Ard Biesheuvel posted 9 patches 1 month ago
There is a newer version of this series
[RFC PATCH 2/9] efi: Tag memblock reservations of boot services regions as RSRV_KERN
Posted by Ard Biesheuvel 1 month ago
From: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>

By definition, EFI memory regions of type boot services code or data
have no special significance to the firmware at runtime, only to the OS.
In some cases, the firmware will allocate tables and other assets that
are passed in memory in regions of this type, and leave it up to the OS
to decide whether or not to treat the allocation as special, or simply
consume the contents at boot and recycle the RAM for ordinary use. The
reason for this approach is that it avoids needless memory reservations
for assets that the OS knows nothing about, and therefore doesn't know
how to free either.

This means that any memblock reservations covering such regions can be
marked as MEMBLOCK_RSRV_KERN - this is a better match semantically, and
is useful on x86 to distinguish true reservations from temporary
reservations that are only needed to work around firmware bugs.

Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
---
 drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c b/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c
index b2fb92a4bbd1..e4ab7481bbf6 100644
--- a/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c
+++ b/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c
@@ -600,7 +600,9 @@ void __init efi_mem_reserve(phys_addr_t addr, u64 size)
 		return;
 
 	if (!memblock_is_region_reserved(addr, size))
-		memblock_reserve(addr, size);
+		memblock_reserve_kern(addr, size);
+	else
+		memblock_reserved_mark_kern(addr, size);
 
 	/*
 	 * Some architectures (x86) reserve all boot services ranges
-- 
2.53.0.473.g4a7958ca14-goog
Re: [RFC PATCH 2/9] efi: Tag memblock reservations of boot services regions as RSRV_KERN
Posted by Mike Rapoport 3 weeks, 3 days ago
On Fri, Mar 06, 2026 at 04:57:06PM +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> From: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
> 
> By definition, EFI memory regions of type boot services code or data
> have no special significance to the firmware at runtime, only to the OS.
> In some cases, the firmware will allocate tables and other assets that
> are passed in memory in regions of this type, and leave it up to the OS
> to decide whether or not to treat the allocation as special, or simply
> consume the contents at boot and recycle the RAM for ordinary use. The
> reason for this approach is that it avoids needless memory reservations
> for assets that the OS knows nothing about, and therefore doesn't know
> how to free either.
> 
> This means that any memblock reservations covering such regions can be
> marked as MEMBLOCK_RSRV_KERN - this is a better match semantically, and
> is useful on x86 to distinguish true reservations from temporary
> reservations that are only needed to work around firmware bugs.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>

Acked-by: Mike Rapoport (Microsoft) <rppt@kernel.org>

> ---
>  drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c | 4 +++-
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c b/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c
> index b2fb92a4bbd1..e4ab7481bbf6 100644
> --- a/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c
> +++ b/drivers/firmware/efi/efi.c
> @@ -600,7 +600,9 @@ void __init efi_mem_reserve(phys_addr_t addr, u64 size)
>  		return;
>  
>  	if (!memblock_is_region_reserved(addr, size))
> -		memblock_reserve(addr, size);
> +		memblock_reserve_kern(addr, size);
> +	else
> +		memblock_reserved_mark_kern(addr, size);
>  
>  	/*
>  	 * Some architectures (x86) reserve all boot services ranges
> -- 
> 2.53.0.473.g4a7958ca14-goog
> 

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Mike.