On Fri, 29 May 2026, at 16:42, Kevin Brodsky wrote: > On 29/05/2026 13:19, Ard Biesheuvel wrote: >> On Fri, 29 May 2026, at 10:27, Kevin Brodsky wrote: >>> On 26/05/2026 19:58, Ard Biesheuvel wrote: >>>> From: Ard Biesheuvel <[email protected]> >>>> >>>> Move the fixmap and kasan page tables out of the BSS section, and place >>>> them at the end of the image, right before the init_pg_dir section where >>>> some of the other statically allocated page tables live. >>>> >>>> These page tables are currently the only data objects in vmlinux that >>>> are meant to be accessed via the kernel image's linear alias, and so >>>> placing them together allows the remainder of the data/bss section to be >>>> remapped read-only or unmapped entirely. >>>> >>>> Reviewed-by: Kevin Brodsky <[email protected]> >>>> Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <[email protected]> >>>> --- >>>> arch/arm64/include/asm/mmu.h | 2 ++ >>>> arch/arm64/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S | 8 +++++++- >>>> arch/arm64/mm/fixmap.c | 6 +++--- >>>> arch/arm64/mm/kasan_init.c | 2 +- >>>> 4 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) >>>> >>>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/mmu.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/mmu.h >>>> index 5e1211c540ab..fb95754f2876 100644 >>>> --- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/mmu.h >>>> +++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/mmu.h >>>> @@ -13,6 +13,8 @@ >>>> >>>> #ifndef __ASSEMBLER__ >>>> >>>> +#define __pgtbl_bss __section(".pgdir.bss") __aligned(PAGE_SIZE) >>>> + >>>> #include <linux/refcount.h> >>>> #include <asm/cpufeature.h> >>>> >>>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S >>>> b/arch/arm64/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S >>>> index e1ac876200a3..2b0ebfb30c63 100644 >>>> --- a/arch/arm64/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S >>>> +++ b/arch/arm64/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S >>>> @@ -349,9 +349,15 @@ SECTIONS >>>> _edata = .; >>>> >>>> /* start of zero-init region */ >>>> - BSS_SECTION(SBSS_ALIGN, 0, 0) >>>> + BSS_SECTION(SBSS_ALIGN, 0, PAGE_SIZE) >>>> __pi___bss_start = __bss_start; >>>> >>>> + /* fixmap BSS starts here - preceding data/BSS is omitted from the >>>> linear map */ >>>> + .pgdir.bss (NOLOAD) : ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE) { >>> Do we actually need the NOLOAD type here? >> Yes, otherwise it is emitted as PROGBITS, resulting in all of BSS to be >> emitted into Image. > > That's rather strange, aren't the .pgdir.bss input sections already > NOBITS since __pgtbl_bss is only used on default-initialised globals?
Not sure why, but the section was PROGBITS not NOBITS before I added the (NOLOAD) > Also AFAIU NOLOAD does not prevent the output section from being emitted > into the ELF file. > NOLOAD marks it as NOBITS, which means there is no data in the file that should be used to populate the section in memory.
