[PATCH 5/9] board_f: Fix corruption of relocaddr

Nikhil M Jain n-jain1 at ti.com
Thu Jul 27 07:22:23 CEST 2023


Hi Simon,

On 27/07/23 06:23, Simon Glass wrote:
> Hi Devarsh,
> 
> On Wed, 26 Jul 2023 at 05:09, Devarsh Thakkar <devarsht at ti.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Simon,
>>
>> On 26/07/23 02:58, Simon Glass wrote:
>>> Hi Devarsh,
>>>
>>> On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 at 03:21, Devarsh Thakkar <devarsht at ti.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Simon,
>>>>
>>>> On 24/07/23 20:22, Simon Glass wrote:
>>>>> When the video framebuffer comes from the bloblist, we should not change
>>>>> relocaddr to this address, since it interfers with the normal memory
>>>>> allocation.
>>>>>
>>>>> This fixes a boot loop in qemu-x86_64
>>>>>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>>>>> Fixes: 5bc610a7d9d ("common: board_f: Pass frame buffer info from SPL to u-boot")
>>>>> ---
>>>>>
>>>>>   common/board_f.c | 1 -
>>>>>   1 file changed, 1 deletion(-)
>>>>>
>>>>> diff --git a/common/board_f.c b/common/board_f.c
>>>>> index 7d2c380e91e2..5c8646b22283 100644
>>>>> --- a/common/board_f.c
>>>>> +++ b/common/board_f.c
>>>>> @@ -419,7 +419,6 @@ static int reserve_video(void)
>>>>>                if (!ho)
>>>>>                        return log_msg_ret("blf", -ENOENT);
>>>>>                video_reserve_from_bloblist(ho);
>>>>> -             gd->relocaddr = ho->fb;
>>>>
>>>> I think this change was done as relocaddr pointer was required to be updated
>>>> to move after frame-buffer reserved area to ensure that any further memory
>>>> reservations done using gd->relocaddr (for e.g. in reserve_trace/uboot/malloc)
>>>> don't overlap with frame-buffer reserved area passed from blob, so I think
>>>> removing this line may cause further memory reservations to overlap with
>>>> reserved framebuffer.
>>>>
>>>> Could you please confirm?
>>>
>>> SPL and U-Boot have different memory layouts. The current code is
>>> interrupting U-Boot's careful building up of chunks of memory used for
>>> different purposes.
>>>
>>
>> But it is possible they could be using similar memory layout for some
>> components like framebuffer.
>> For e.g. in our case we are using same video_reserve func in A53 SPL too
>> and which allocates framebuffer from gd->relocaddr as seen here:
>>
>> https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/-/blob/v2023.10-rc1/common/board_f.c?ref_type=tags#L427
> 
> Even if it is similar, the point is that U-Boot proper needs to do its
> own allocation stuff.
> 
> Of course, if SPL sets up the video, it will provide the framebuffer
> address, but only that. The other addresses need to be done using the
> normal mechanism.
> 
>>
>>> The video memory has already been allocated by SPL, so we don't need
>>> to insert a new one here, as your code demonstrates.
>>>
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>>> But also we have no way of knowing if it is legal to relocate U-Boot
>>> (and various other things) just below the frame buffer chosen by SPL.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, so i suppose your case is that framebuffer address which is being passed
>> by SPL is totally disjoint and too far away from gd->relocaddr, for e.g. it is
>> at the start (or bottom of DDR) and doesn't interfere with gd->relocaddr in
>> any manner since relocaddr points to ramtop (i.e. near to end address of DDR).
>>
>> In that case I agree it doesn't make sense to move relocaddr to ho->fb.
>>
>> But for the scenario where gd->relocaddr and ho->fb are nearby there is every
>> possibility that gd->relocaddr may overlap with framebuffer, also the code in
>> reserve_trace, reserve_uboot doesn't have any intelligence or check that it is
>> overlapping with framebuffer area or not.
>>
>> I think one thing that can probably be done here is to have a check that if
>> passed framebuffer area falls within current relocaddr region, then update the
>> relocaddr else don't touch relocaddr :
>>
>> if (ho->fb <= gd->relocaddr - ho->size)
>>    //It means framebuffer are is overlapping with current relocaddr so update
>> relocaddr
>>      gd->relocaddr = ho->fb
>> else
>>    //don't update gd->relocaddr since ho->fb is disjoint to gd->relocaddr
>>
>> Could you please share your opinion on this and if above logic suffice your
>> case too ?
> 
> I don't think this line is needed at all, which is why this patch
> removes it. What problem are you seeing?
> 
Across SPL stage and U-boot we are keeping same memory layout and
ensuring that same memory regions are used, this way it doesn't
interfere in the way of u-boot while allocating memory regions for
various purposes. This allowed us to display splash screen without any
flicker across the stages.

Now if you remove the line  gd->relocaddr = ho->fb, the frame buffer 
region will be used for reserving memory for other purposes which
corrupts the frame buffer.

One solution which we are planning to implement is move the ram_top to a
lower address leaving out a region for video buffer and u-boot can do
the allocation from the new ram_top address without spl video handoff
interfering in the u-boot's allocation of memory.The region above the 
ram_top can be used for video.

Present Scenario
+---------------------+ram_top
|                     |
|      page_table     |
|                     |
|                     |
+---------------------+
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|  video frame buffer |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
+---------------------+
|                     |
|                     |
|    reserve_trace    |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
+---------------------+


Proposed Solution
+---------------------+
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
| video frame buffer  |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
+---------------------+ram_top
|                     |
|                     |
|      page_table     |
|                     |
|                     |
|                     |
+---------------------+
|                     |
|                     |
|    reserve_trace    |
|                     |
|                     |
+---------------------+

> Regards,
> Simon
> 
> 
>>
>> Regards
>> Devarsh
>>
>>> The SPL frame buffer needs to be considered pre-allocated. It makes no
>>> sense to set relocaddr to this value. It will break all sorts of
>>> things. E.g. qemu-x86_64 crashes with this.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>> Devarsh
>>>>
>>>>>        } else if (CONFIG_IS_ENABLED(VIDEO)) {
>>>>>                ulong addr;
>>>>>                int ret;
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Simon

Regards,
Nikhil


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