* [PATCH] arm64: Add copy_mc_to_kernel() that recovers from synchronous external aborts
@ 2026-10-28 4:50 Adi Nikumbh
0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Adi Nikumbh @ 2026-10-28 4:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Catalin Marinas, Will Deacon
Cc: Adi Nikumbh, Mark Rutland, Tony Luck, Miaohe Lin,
Naoya Horiguchi, Tong Tiangen, Ruidong Tian, linux-arm-kernel,
linux-mm, linux-kernel
Without ACPI APEI firmware-first error handling, as on Zynq UltraScale+
boards using synopsys_edac, an uncorrectable DRAM ECC error reaches the
CPU as a synchronous external abort (SEA). When the kernel itself reads
the bad memory, do_sea() can only die.
fs/coredump.c already copies each page with copy_mc_to_kernel() when the
architecture provides it, so that a poisoned page ends the dump rather
than the kernel. arm64 does not provide it. A process killed with SIGBUS
by a SEA on poisoned memory is then dumped with a plain memcpy(), which
reads the same memory again from kernel mode and oopses.
The oops is worse than the original error. The dumping thread dies
before coredump_finish(), so every other thread of the process stays in
exit_mm() in TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE, waiting for a dump that never
completes. The process cannot be killed, and a service manager waiting
for it to exit cannot restart it.
Provide copy_mc_to_kernel() for arm64. Its source loads carry a new
EX_TYPE_KACCESS_MC exception table entry. When a kernel-mode SEA lands
on one of those loads, do_sea() moves the PC to the fixup and the copy
returns the number of bytes it did not copy. fixup_exception() does not
handle the new type, so other faults on these loads behave as they do
for memcpy(). The kernel is still tainted with TAINT_MACHINE_CHECK.
Only an EL1 data abort with an external abort fault status is
recovered. Aborts on instruction fetches or translation table walks
still die, and so does an error that a CPU with the RAS extension
reports as uncontainable.
Recovery does not depend on apei_claim_sea(). A SEA on a load is
synchronous and precise: the load did not complete, so resuming at the
fixup is safe however the error was reported. do_sea() still calls
apei_claim_sea() before resuming so that firmware-first systems record
and handle the error.
Defining copy_mc_to_kernel also gives its existing users the same
behaviour on arm64: copy_mc_highpage() and copy_mc_user_highpage(),
which queue memory_failure() for the source page on failure, and the
pmem, DAX, dm-writecache and dm-pcache drivers. copy_mc_to_user() and
ARCH_HAS_COPY_MC are left for later.
Signed-off-by: Adi Nikumbh <nikumbh.adi@gmail.com>
---
Notes:
Testing: arm64 defconfig with EDAC_SYNOPSYS, MEMORY_FAILURE,
BLK_DEV_PMEM=m, DM_WRITECACHE=m, DEV_DAX=m and WERROR builds without
warnings; fs/coredump.o now calls copy_mc_to_kernel(). Tested in QEMU
virt (TCG, cortex-a53) with an out-of-tree module, where a load from an
unassigned physical address raises a synchronous external abort (ESR
0x96000010). Without this patch, copy_mc_to_kernel() from that address
oopses in memcpy(). With the patch, it returns the full length as not
copied, sets TAINT_MACHINE_CHECK, leaves the destination unchanged and
the kernel continues. copy_mc_to_kernel() on RAM matches memcpy() for
sizes 0 to 4096 at offsets 0 to 2. Instruction-fetch, table-walk and
RAS-uncontainable aborts still die, but QEMU cannot raise those on the
annotated loads, so that is checked by review only. Not yet
tested on ZynqMP hardware or with a real DRAM ECC error, and not
through the coredump path end to end.
Prior work: Ruidong Tian's "arm64: add ARCH_HAS_COPY_MC support" v15 [1],
which continues Tong Tiangen's series, does more (copy_mc_to_user(),
copy_mc_[user]_highpage(), ARCH_HAS_COPY_MC), but its do_sea() only
applies the kernel fixup after apei_claim_sea() succeeds, so it does not
help systems without APEI firmware-first handling. This patch is the
smaller piece that does. The two conflict, since both add an exception
table type and a memcpy_mc.S. If v15 is the preferred base, I am happy
to rework this as a follow-up on top of it. If the arm64 maintainers want
the APEI gating kept, I would welcome guidance on how DT-only systems
should opt in.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260618092124.3901230-1-tianruidong@linux.alibaba.com/
Tool use: this patch was drafted with an LLM coding assistant
(Anthropic's Claude). It traced the coredump and do_sea() paths,
drafted the architecture, the code, the changelog and the QEMU test
module, and ran the builds, checkpatch and the QEMU tests. A second
model (OpenAI's) reviewed the patch; its findings restricted recovery
to EL1 data aborts with an external abort fault status.
arch/arm64/include/asm/asm-extable.h | 9 ++++++
arch/arm64/include/asm/esr.h | 1 +
arch/arm64/include/asm/extable.h | 1 +
arch/arm64/include/asm/uaccess.h | 4 +++
arch/arm64/lib/Makefile | 2 ++
arch/arm64/lib/copy_mc.c | 28 +++++++++++++++++
arch/arm64/lib/memcpy_mc.S | 45 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
arch/arm64/mm/extable.c | 15 ++++++++++
arch/arm64/mm/fault.c | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++
9 files changed, 138 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 arch/arm64/lib/copy_mc.c
create mode 100644 arch/arm64/lib/memcpy_mc.S
diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/asm-extable.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/asm-extable.h
index d67e2fdd1ae..60cbadff723 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/asm-extable.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/asm-extable.h
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
#define EX_TYPE_KACCESS_ERR_ZERO 3
#define EX_TYPE_UACCESS_CPY 4
#define EX_TYPE_LOAD_UNALIGNED_ZEROPAD 5
+#define EX_TYPE_KACCESS_MC 6
/* Data fields for EX_TYPE_UACCESS_ERR_ZERO */
#define EX_DATA_REG_ERR_SHIFT 0
@@ -77,6 +78,14 @@
__ASM_EXTABLE_RAW(\insn, \fixup, EX_TYPE_UACCESS_CPY, \uaccess_is_write)
.endm
+/*
+ * Create an exception table entry for a kernel load in copy_mc_to_kernel(),
+ * which will branch to `fixup` only on a synchronous external abort.
+ */
+ .macro _asm_extable_kaccess_mc, insn, fixup
+ __ASM_EXTABLE_RAW(\insn, \fixup, EX_TYPE_KACCESS_MC, 0)
+ .endm
+
#else /* __ASSEMBLER__ */
#include <linux/stringify.h>
diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/esr.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/esr.h
index a584f88dbaf..8436c8d4668 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/esr.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/esr.h
@@ -105,6 +105,7 @@
#define ESR_ELx_VNCR (UL(1) << ESR_ELx_VNCR_SHIFT)
#define ESR_ELx_SET_SHIFT (11)
#define ESR_ELx_SET_MASK (UL(3) << ESR_ELx_SET_SHIFT)
+#define ESR_ELx_SET_UC (UL(2) << ESR_ELx_SET_SHIFT)
#define ESR_ELx_FnV_SHIFT (10)
#define ESR_ELx_FnV (UL(1) << ESR_ELx_FnV_SHIFT)
#define ESR_ELx_EA_SHIFT (9)
diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/extable.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/extable.h
index 9dc39612bdf..2629a2fe18c 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/extable.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/extable.h
@@ -48,4 +48,5 @@ bool ex_handler_bpf(const struct exception_table_entry *ex,
#endif /* !CONFIG_BPF_JIT */
bool fixup_exception(struct pt_regs *regs, unsigned long esr);
+bool fixup_exception_mc(struct pt_regs *regs);
#endif
diff --git a/arch/arm64/include/asm/uaccess.h b/arch/arm64/include/asm/uaccess.h
index 9f5bd9c69c2..19596fa3d67 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/include/asm/uaccess.h
+++ b/arch/arm64/include/asm/uaccess.h
@@ -474,6 +474,10 @@ extern long strncpy_from_user(char *dest, const char __user *src, long count);
extern __must_check long strnlen_user(const char __user *str, long n);
+unsigned long __must_check
+copy_mc_to_kernel(void *to, const void *from, size_t size);
+#define copy_mc_to_kernel copy_mc_to_kernel
+
#ifdef CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_UACCESS_FLUSHCACHE
extern unsigned long __must_check __copy_user_flushcache(void *to, const void __user *from, unsigned long n);
diff --git a/arch/arm64/lib/Makefile b/arch/arm64/lib/Makefile
index 38ffd359123..2772ce3ead9 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/lib/Makefile
+++ b/arch/arm64/lib/Makefile
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ lib-y := clear_user.o delay.o copy_from_user.o \
lib-$(CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_UACCESS_FLUSHCACHE) += uaccess_flushcache.o
+obj-y += copy_mc.o memcpy_mc.o
+
obj-$(CONFIG_FUNCTION_ERROR_INJECTION) += error-inject.o
obj-$(CONFIG_ARM64_MTE) += mte.o
diff --git a/arch/arm64/lib/copy_mc.c b/arch/arm64/lib/copy_mc.c
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..365df3bfea3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/arch/arm64/lib/copy_mc.c
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
+
+#include <linux/export.h>
+#include <linux/instrumented.h>
+#include <linux/uaccess.h>
+
+unsigned long __memcpy_mc(void *to, const void *from, unsigned long n);
+
+/**
+ * copy_mc_to_kernel - copy memory, surviving uncorrectable source errors
+ * @to: destination address
+ * @from: source address
+ * @size: number of bytes to copy
+ *
+ * Return: 0 on success, otherwise the number of bytes not copied because a
+ * source load hit memory with an uncorrectable error.
+ */
+unsigned long __must_check copy_mc_to_kernel(void *to, const void *from, size_t size)
+{
+ unsigned long ret;
+
+ instrument_memcpy_before(to, from, size);
+ ret = __memcpy_mc(to, from, size);
+ instrument_memcpy_after(to, from, size, ret);
+
+ return ret;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(copy_mc_to_kernel);
diff --git a/arch/arm64/lib/memcpy_mc.S b/arch/arm64/lib/memcpy_mc.S
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..e34a86bc0d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/arch/arm64/lib/memcpy_mc.S
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only */
+
+#include <linux/linkage.h>
+#include <asm/asm-extable.h>
+#include <asm/assembler.h>
+
+/*
+ * Copy memory whose source may contain an uncorrectable error. A synchronous
+ * external abort on a source load stops the copy instead of killing the
+ * kernel. Faults of any other kind are handled as they are for memcpy().
+ *
+ * Parameters:
+ * x0 - dest
+ * x1 - src
+ * x2 - n
+ * Returns:
+ * x0 - bytes not copied
+ */
+SYM_FUNC_START(__memcpy_mc)
+ cmp x2, #8
+ b.lo .Lbytes
+.Lwords:
+1: ldr x3, [x1], #8
+ str x3, [x0], #8
+ sub x2, x2, #8
+ cmp x2, #8
+ b.hs .Lwords
+.Lbytes:
+ cbz x2, .Ldone
+2: ldrb w3, [x1], #1
+ strb w3, [x0], #1
+ subs x2, x2, #1
+ b.ne 2b
+.Ldone:
+ mov x0, #0
+ ret
+
+ /* The faulting load did not complete, so x2 still counts its bytes */
+.Lfault:
+ mov x0, x2
+ ret
+SYM_FUNC_END(__memcpy_mc)
+
+ _asm_extable_kaccess_mc 1b, .Lfault
+ _asm_extable_kaccess_mc 2b, .Lfault
diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/extable.c b/arch/arm64/mm/extable.c
index 299a244f68e..22b0356664b 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/mm/extable.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/mm/extable.c
@@ -105,7 +105,22 @@ bool fixup_exception(struct pt_regs *regs, unsigned long esr)
return ex_handler_uaccess_cpy(ex, regs, esr);
case EX_TYPE_LOAD_UNALIGNED_ZEROPAD:
return ex_handler_load_unaligned_zeropad(ex, regs);
+ case EX_TYPE_KACCESS_MC:
+ /* Only a synchronous external abort is fixed up, by fixup_exception_mc() */
+ return false;
}
BUG();
}
+
+bool fixup_exception_mc(struct pt_regs *regs)
+{
+ const struct exception_table_entry *ex;
+
+ ex = search_exception_tables(instruction_pointer(regs));
+ if (!ex || ex->type != EX_TYPE_KACCESS_MC)
+ return false;
+
+ regs->pc = get_ex_fixup(ex);
+ return true;
+}
diff --git a/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c b/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
index b22736853fc..f65304f29f6 100644
--- a/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
+++ b/arch/arm64/mm/fault.c
@@ -874,6 +874,26 @@ static int do_bad(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
return 1; /* "fault" */
}
+/*
+ * A kernel data abort on memory with an uncorrectable error can be recovered
+ * by copy_mc_to_kernel(). Aborts on instruction fetches or translation table
+ * walks cannot, and neither can errors the CPU reports as uncontainable.
+ */
+static bool is_el1_recoverable_sea(unsigned long esr)
+{
+ if (!is_el1_data_abort(esr))
+ return false;
+
+ if ((esr & ESR_ELx_FSC) != ESR_ELx_FSC_EXTABT)
+ return false;
+
+ if (cpus_have_cap(ARM64_HAS_RAS_EXTN) &&
+ (esr & ESR_ELx_SET_MASK) == ESR_ELx_SET_UC)
+ return false;
+
+ return true;
+}
+
static int do_sea(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
{
const struct fault_info *inf;
@@ -889,6 +909,19 @@ static int do_sea(unsigned long far, unsigned long esr, struct pt_regs *regs)
return 0;
}
+ if (!user_mode(regs) && is_el1_recoverable_sea(esr) &&
+ fixup_exception_mc(regs)) {
+ /*
+ * copy_mc_to_kernel() read memory with an uncorrectable error.
+ * It returns the bytes it could not copy and its caller handles
+ * the failure, so the kernel does not need to die. Firmware-first
+ * systems still get to record the error.
+ */
+ apei_claim_sea(regs);
+ add_taint(TAINT_MACHINE_CHECK, LOCKDEP_STILL_OK);
+ return 0;
+ }
+
if (esr & ESR_ELx_FnV) {
siaddr = 0;
} else {
base-commit: 8a36f53fd5ec3eff01f1b637d42cbdc3821d0493
--
2.53.0
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