linux-stable.git/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt, branch linux-5.4.y

fs: Add 'initramfs_options' to set initramfs mount options

2025-10-29T12:59:55+00:00

[ Upstream commit 278033a225e13ec21900f0a92b8351658f5377f2 ]

When CONFIG_TMPFS is enabled, the initial root filesystem is a tmpfs.
By default, a tmpfs mount is limited to using 50% of the available RAM
for its content. This can be problematic in memory-constrained
environments, particularly during a kdump capture.

In a kdump scenario, the capture kernel boots with a limited amount of
memory specified by the 'crashkernel' parameter. If the initramfs is
large, it may fail to unpack into the tmpfs rootfs due to insufficient
space. This is because to get X MB of usable space in tmpfs, 2*X MB of
memory must be available for the mount. This leads to an OOM failure
during the early boot process, preventing a successful crash dump.

This patch introduces a new kernel command-line parameter,
initramfs_options, which allows passing specific mount options directly
to the rootfs when it is first mounted. This gives users control over
the rootfs behavior.

For example, a user can now specify initramfs_options=size=75% to allow
the tmpfs to use up to 75% of the available memory. This can
significantly reduce the memory pressure for kdump.

Consider a practical example:

To unpack a 48MB initramfs, the tmpfs needs 48MB of usable space. With
the default 50% limit, this requires a memory pool of 96MB to be
available for the tmpfs mount. The total memory requirement is therefore
approximately: 16MB (vmlinuz) + 48MB (loaded initramfs) + 48MB (unpacked
kernel) + 96MB (for tmpfs) + 12MB (runtime overhead) ≈ 220MB.

By using initramfs_options=size=75%, the memory pool required for the
48MB tmpfs is reduced to 48MB / 0.75 = 64MB. This reduces the total
memory requirement by 32MB (96MB - 64MB), allowing the kdump to succeed
with a smaller crashkernel size, such as 192MB.

An alternative approach of reusing the existing rootflags parameter was
considered. However, a new, dedicated initramfs_options parameter was
chosen to avoid altering the current behavior of rootflags (which
applies to the final root filesystem) and to prevent any potential
regressions.

Also add documentation for the new kernel parameter "initramfs_options"

This approach is inspired by prior discussions and patches on the topic.
Ref: https://www.lightofdawn.org/blog/?viewDetailed=00128
Ref: https://landley.net/notes-2015.html#01-01-2015
Ref: https://lkml.org/lkml/2021/6/29/783
Ref: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.html#what-is-rootfs

Signed-off-by: Lichen Liu
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20250815121459.3391223-1-lichliu@redhat.com
Tested-by: Rob Landley
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

Revert "x86/bugs: Make spectre user default depend on MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2" on v6.6 and older

2025-06-27T10:02:56+00:00

This reverts commit a8c22ec36cdd99c1002d7152f859798fef7c4d58 which is
commit 98fdaeb296f51ef08e727a7cc72e5b5c864c4f4d upstream.

commit 7adb96687ce8 ("x86/bugs: Make spectre user default depend on
MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2") depends on commit 72c70f480a70 ("x86/bugs: Add
a separate config for Spectre V2"), which introduced
MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2.

commit 72c70f480a70 ("x86/bugs: Add a separate config for Spectre V2")
never landed in stable tree, thus, stable tree doesn't have
MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2, that said, commit 7adb96687ce8 ("x86/bugs: Make
spectre user default depend on MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2") has no value if
the dependecy was not applied.

Revert commit 7adb96687ce8 ("x86/bugs: Make spectre user default
depend on MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2")  in stable kernel which landed in in
5.4.294, 5.10.238, 5.15.185, 6.1.141 and 6.6.93 stable versions.

Cc: David.Kaplan@amd.com
Cc: peterz@infradead.org
Cc: pawan.kumar.gupta@linux.intel.com
Cc: mingo@kernel.org
Cc: brad.spengler@opensrcsec.com
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # 6.6 6.1 5.15 5.10 5.4
Reported-by: Brad Spengler 
Reported-by: Salvatore Bonaccorso 
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

x86/bugs: Make spectre user default depend on MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2

2025-06-04T12:32:32+00:00

[ Upstream commit 98fdaeb296f51ef08e727a7cc72e5b5c864c4f4d ]

Change the default value of spectre v2 in user mode to respect the
CONFIG_MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2 config option.

Currently, user mode spectre v2 is set to auto
(SPECTRE_V2_USER_CMD_AUTO) by default, even if
CONFIG_MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2 is disabled.

Set the spectre_v2 value to auto (SPECTRE_V2_USER_CMD_AUTO) if the
Spectre v2 config (CONFIG_MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2) is enabled, otherwise
set the value to none (SPECTRE_V2_USER_CMD_NONE).

Important to say the command line argument "spectre_v2_user" overwrites
the default value in both cases.

When CONFIG_MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2 is not set, users have the flexibility
to opt-in for specific mitigations independently. In this scenario,
setting spectre_v2= will not enable spectre_v2_user=, and command line
options spectre_v2_user and spectre_v2 are independent when
CONFIG_MITIGATION_SPECTRE_V2=n.

Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao 
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar 
Reviewed-by: Pawan Gupta 
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf 
Cc: Peter Zijlstra 
Cc: David Kaplan 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20241031-x86_bugs_last_v2-v2-2-b7ff1dab840e@debian.org
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

proc: add config & param to block forcing mem writes

2024-11-08T15:20:38+00:00

[ Upstream commit 41e8149c8892ed1962bd15350b3c3e6e90cba7f4 ]

This adds a Kconfig option and boot param to allow removing
the FOLL_FORCE flag from /proc/pid/mem write calls because
it can be abused.

The traditional forcing behavior is kept as default because
it can break GDB and some other use cases.

Previously we tried a more sophisticated approach allowing
distributions to fine-tune /proc/pid/mem behavior, however
that got NAK-ed by Linus [1], who prefers this simpler
approach with semantics also easier to understand for users.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wiGWLChxYmUA5HrT5aopZrB7_2VTa0NLZcxORgkUe5tEQ@mail.gmail.com/ [1]
Cc: Doug Anderson 
Cc: Jeff Xu 
Cc: Jann Horn 
Cc: Kees Cook 
Cc: Ard Biesheuvel 
Cc: Christian Brauner 
Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds 
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds 
Signed-off-by: Adrian Ratiu 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240802080225.89408-1-adrian.ratiu@collabora.com
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner 
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

x86/cpu: Support AMD Automatic IBRS

2024-04-13T10:51:21+00:00

commit e7862eda309ecfccc36bb5558d937ed3ace07f3f upstream.

The AMD Zen4 core supports a new feature called Automatic IBRS.

It is a "set-and-forget" feature that means that, like Intel's Enhanced IBRS,
h/w manages its IBRS mitigation resources automatically across CPL transitions.

The feature is advertised by CPUID_Fn80000021_EAX bit 8 and is enabled by
setting MSR C000_0080 (EFER) bit 21.

Enable Automatic IBRS by default if the CPU feature is present.  It typically
provides greater performance over the incumbent generic retpolines mitigation.

Reuse the SPECTRE_V2_EIBRS spectre_v2_mitigation enum.  AMD Automatic IBRS and
Intel Enhanced IBRS have similar enablement.  Add NO_EIBRS_PBRSB to
cpu_vuln_whitelist, since AMD Automatic IBRS isn't affected by PBRSB-eIBRS.

The kernel command line option spectre_v2=eibrs is used to select AMD Automatic
IBRS, if available.

Signed-off-by: Kim Phillips 
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) 
Acked-by: Sean Christopherson 
Acked-by: Dave Hansen 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230124163319.2277355-8-kim.phillips@amd.com
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

x86/speculation: Add force option to GDS mitigation

2023-08-08T17:56:35+00:00

commit 553a5c03e90a6087e88f8ff878335ef0621536fb upstream

The Gather Data Sampling (GDS) vulnerability allows malicious software
to infer stale data previously stored in vector registers. This may
include sensitive data such as cryptographic keys. GDS is mitigated in
microcode, and systems with up-to-date microcode are protected by
default. However, any affected system that is running with older
microcode will still be vulnerable to GDS attacks.

Since the gather instructions used by the attacker are part of the
AVX2 and AVX512 extensions, disabling these extensions prevents gather
instructions from being executed, thereby mitigating the system from
GDS. Disabling AVX2 is sufficient, but we don't have the granularity
to do this. The XCR0[2] disables AVX, with no option to just disable
AVX2.

Add a kernel parameter gather_data_sampling=force that will enable the
microcode mitigation if available, otherwise it will disable AVX on
affected systems.

This option will be ignored if cmdline mitigations=off.

This is a *big* hammer.  It is known to break buggy userspace that
uses incomplete, buggy AVX enumeration.  Unfortunately, such userspace
does exist in the wild:

	https://www.mail-archive.com/bug-coreutils@gnu.org/msg33046.html

[ dhansen: add some more ominous warnings about disabling AVX ]

Signed-off-by: Daniel Sneddon 
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen 
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf 
Signed-off-by: Daniel Sneddon 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

x86/speculation: Add Gather Data Sampling mitigation

2023-08-08T17:56:35+00:00

commit 8974eb588283b7d44a7c91fa09fcbaf380339f3a upstream

Gather Data Sampling (GDS) is a hardware vulnerability which allows
unprivileged speculative access to data which was previously stored in
vector registers.

Intel processors that support AVX2 and AVX512 have gather instructions
that fetch non-contiguous data elements from memory. On vulnerable
hardware, when a gather instruction is transiently executed and
encounters a fault, stale data from architectural or internal vector
registers may get transiently stored to the destination vector
register allowing an attacker to infer the stale data using typical
side channel techniques like cache timing attacks.

This mitigation is different from many earlier ones for two reasons.
First, it is enabled by default and a bit must be set to *DISABLE* it.
This is the opposite of normal mitigation polarity. This means GDS can
be mitigated simply by updating microcode and leaving the new control
bit alone.

Second, GDS has a "lock" bit. This lock bit is there because the
mitigation affects the hardware security features KeyLocker and SGX.
It needs to be enabled and *STAY* enabled for these features to be
mitigated against GDS.

The mitigation is enabled in the microcode by default. Disable it by
setting gather_data_sampling=off or by disabling all mitigations with
mitigations=off. The mitigation status can be checked by reading:

    /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/gather_data_sampling

Signed-off-by: Daniel Sneddon 
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen 
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf 
Signed-off-by: Daniel Sneddon 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

Remove DECnet support from kernel

2023-06-21T13:44:10+00:00

commit 1202cdd665315c525b5237e96e0bedc76d7e754f upstream.

DECnet is an obsolete network protocol that receives more attention
from kernel janitors than users. It belongs in computer protocol
history museum not in Linux kernel.

It has been "Orphaned" in kernel since 2010. The iproute2 support
for DECnet was dropped in 5.0 release. The documentation link on
Sourceforge says it is abandoned there as well.

Leave the UAPI alone to keep userspace programs compiling.
This means that there is still an empty neighbour table
for AF_DECNET.

The table of /proc/sys/net entries was updated to match
current directories and reformatted to be alphabetical.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger 
Acked-by: David Ahern 
Acked-by: Nikolay Aleksandrov 
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller 
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman

iommu/amd: Fix ill-formed ivrs_ioapic, ivrs_hpet and ivrs_acpihid options

2023-03-17T07:32:48+00:00

[ Upstream commit 1198d2316dc4265a97d0e8445a22c7a6d17580a4 ]

Currently, these options cause the following libkmod error:

libkmod: ERROR ../libkmod/libkmod-config.c:489 kcmdline_parse_result: \
	Ignoring bad option on kernel command line while parsing module \
	name: 'ivrs_xxxx[XX:XX'

Fix by introducing a new parameter format for these options and
throw a warning for the deprecated format.

Users are still allowed to omit the PCI Segment if zero.

Adding a Link: to the reason why we're modding the syntax parsing
in the driver and not in libkmod.

Fixes: ca3bf5d47cec ("iommu/amd: Introduces ivrs_acpihid kernel parameter")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/20200310082308.14318-2-lucas.demarchi@intel.com/
Reported-by: Kim Phillips 
Co-developed-by: Suravee Suthikulpanit 
Signed-off-by: Suravee Suthikulpanit 
Signed-off-by: Kim Phillips 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220919155638.391481-2-kim.phillips@amd.com
Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel 
Stable-dep-of: b6b26d86c61c ("iommu/amd: Add a length limitation for the ivrs_acpihid command-line parameter")
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin

iommu/amd: Add PCI segment support for ivrs_[ioapic/hpet/acpihid] commands

2023-03-17T07:32:48+00:00

[ Upstream commit bbe3a106580c21bc883fb0c9fa3da01534392fe8 ]

By default, PCI segment is zero and can be omitted. To support system
with non-zero PCI segment ID, modify the parsing functions to allow
PCI segment ID.

Co-developed-by: Vasant Hegde 
Signed-off-by: Vasant Hegde 
Signed-off-by: Suravee Suthikulpanit 
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220706113825.25582-33-vasant.hegde@amd.com
Signed-off-by: Joerg Roedel 
Stable-dep-of: b6b26d86c61c ("iommu/amd: Add a length limitation for the ivrs_acpihid command-line parameter")
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin