Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
[romprefix] Avoid using PMM-allocated memory in UNDI loader entry point
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
The UNDI loader entry point is very likely to be called after POST,
when there is a high chance that the PMM-allocated image source area
and decompression area have been reused by something else.

In particular, using an iPXE .iso to test a separate iPXE ROM's UNDI
loader entry point in a qemu VM is likely to crash.  SeaBIOS allocates
PMM blocks from close to the top of memory and so these blocks have a
high chance of colliding with the runtime addresses subsequently
chosen by the non-ROM iPXE by scanning the INT 15,e820 memory map.

The standard romprefix.S has no choice about relying on the
PMM-allocated image source area, since it has no other way to retrieve
its compressed payload.

In mromprefix.S, the image source area functions only as an optional
buffer used to avoid repeated reads from the (potentially slow)
expansion ROM BAR by the decompression code.  We can therefore always
set %esi=0 when calling install_prealloc from the UNDI loader entry
point, and simply fall back to reading directly from the expansion ROM
BAR.

We can always set %edi=0 when calling install_prealloc from the UNDI
loader entry point.  This will behave as though the decompression area
PMM allocation failed, and will therefore use INT 15,88 to find a
temporary decompression area somewhere close to 64MB.  This is by no
means guaranteed to be safe from collisions, but it's probably safer
on balance than the PMM-allocated address.

Signed-off-by: Michael Brown <mcb30@ipxe.org>
  • Loading branch information
mcb30 committed Dec 5, 2016
1 parent 8138ea1 commit cc40fcb
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 2 changed files with 33 additions and 1 deletion.
18 changes: 18 additions & 0 deletions src/arch/x86/prefix/mromprefix.S
Expand Up @@ -456,6 +456,24 @@ pci_set_mem_access:
ret
.size pci_set_mem_access, . - pci_set_mem_access

/* Update image source address for UNDI loader
*
* Parameters:
* %esi : Image source address
* Returns:
* %esi : Image source address
*/
.section ".prefix", "ax", @progbits
.globl undiloader_source
undiloader_source:
/* Always use expansion ROM BAR directly when installing via
* the UNDI loader entry point, since the PMM-allocated block
* may collide with whatever is calling the UNDI loader entry
* point.
*/
xorl %esi, %esi
ret

/* Payload prefix
*
* We include a dummy ROM header to cover the "hidden" portion of the
Expand Down
16 changes: 15 additions & 1 deletion src/arch/x86/prefix/undiloader.S
Expand Up @@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ undiloader:
movw %es:12(%di), %bx
movw %es:14(%di), %ax
movl image_source, %esi
movl decompress_to, %edi
call undiloader_source
xorl %edi, %edi
orl $0xffffffff, %ebp /* Allow arbitrary relocation */
call install_prealloc
popw %di
Expand All @@ -57,3 +58,16 @@ undiloader:
popl %edi
popl %esi
lret

/* Update image source address for UNDI loader
*
* Parameters:
* %esi : Image source address
* Returns:
* %esi : Image source address
*/
.section ".prefix", "ax", @progbits
.globl undiloader_source
.weak undiloader_source
undiloader_source:
ret

0 comments on commit cc40fcb

Please sign in to comment.