Second kexec_file_load (but not kexec_load) fails on i915 if CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU_DEFAULT_ON=n

[Baoquan He]

On 07/04/25 at 11:29am, Jani Nikula wrote:
> On Thu, 03 Jul 2025, Askar Safin <safinaskar at zohomail.com> wrote:
> > TL;DR: I found a bug in strange interaction in kexec_file_load (but not kexec_load) and i915
> > TL;DR#2: Second (sometimes third or forth) kexec (using kexec_file_load) fails on my particular hardware
> > TL;DR#3: I did 55 expirements, each of them required a lot of boots, in total I did 1908 boots
> 
> Thanks for the detailed debug info. I'm afraid all I can say at this
> point is, please file all of this in a bug report as described in
> [1]. Please add the drm.debug related options, and attach the dmesgs and
> configs in the bug instead of pointing at external sites.

Yeah, that's very great example people can refer to when reporting
issues to upstream, thanks for the details.

For the bug itself, I would hope Intel GPU people can have a look, see
what's happened and how to fix. For kexec reboot, we have got problems
on Nvidia GPU and amdgpu which makes kexec reboot hard to do continuous
switching to 2nd kernel. In Redhat, we have met this several years ago,
and we tried to contact GPU dev, while there's no way to fix it. Finaly
we have to declare not supporting kexec reboot formally. This Intel GPU
issue could be a different one, I still hope GPU dev can have a look.

Currently, many people are investing much effort on KHO, K-state, etc
in upstream to make kexec reboot versatile and flexible. I am very glad
to see that. And I guess people possiblly have met the same GPU issues on
Nvidia and AMD gpu as I mentioned, and trying to solve them. Otherwise,
no matter how wonderful KHO, K-state or K-anything are, they are just sky
scraper on sand.

Personal opinion.

Thanks
Baoquan