Improve Qualcomm SOC msm8994/msm8992 kernel mainline support
a project by pvorel
Updated over 1 year ago. 3 hacker ♥️. 2 followers.

Project Description

Due previous hackweek (https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/test-mainline-kernel-on-an-older-qualcomm-soc-msm89xx-explore-mainline-kernel-qualcomm-mainlining) both msm8994 angler and msm8992 bullhead are booting and due other activity (including my work) both have working SD card, but that's just start. Add support for other functionality.

Goal for this Hackweek

  • There are still some memory issues for bullhead (SMEM, invalid patch: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-msm/20230128055214.33648-1-jamiemdouglass@gmail.com/), fix them.
  • Regulators support for angler (basic for other functionality)
  • USB support for both angler and bullhead
  • Haptics support (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Haptics)
  • Document on

Resources

  • https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/qcom/linux.git
  • https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Qualcomm_Glossary
  • https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Mainlining
  • https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Mainlining_Guide

Result

Join this project

Looking for hackers with the skills:

kernel aarch64 mainlining soc qualcomm linux

This project is part of:

Hack Week 22 Hack Week 23

Activity

  • almost 2 years ago: iivanov liked this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: clin liked this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel started this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: dmdiss liked this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel added keyword "kernel" to this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel added keyword "aarch64" to this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel added keyword "mainlining" to this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel added keyword "soc" to this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel added keyword "qualcomm" to this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel added keyword "linux" to this project.
  • almost 2 years ago: pvorel originated this project.


    • Comments

    Be the first to comment!

    Similar Projects

    Kill DMA and DMA32 memory zones by ptesarik

    Description

    Provide a better allocator for DMA-capable buffers, making the DMA and DMA32 zones obsolete.

    Goals

    Make a PoC kernel which can boot a x86 VM and a Raspberry Pi (because early RPi4 boards have some of the weirdest DMA constraints).

    Resources

    • LPC2024 talk:
    • video:

    early stage kdump support by mbrugger

    Project Description

    When we experience a early boot crash, we are not able to analyze the kernel dump, as user-space wasn't able to load the crash system. The idea is to make the crash system compiled into the host kernel (think of initramfs) so that we can create a kernel dump really early in the boot process.

    Goal for the Hackweeks

    1. Investigate if this is possible and the implications it would have (done in HW21)
    2. Hack up a PoC (done in HW22 and HW23)
    3. Prepare RFC series (giving it's only one week, we are entering wishful thinking territory here).

    update HW23

    • I was able to include the crash kernel into the kernel Image.
    • I'll need to find a way to load that from init/main.c:start_kernel() probably after kcsan_init()
    • I workaround for a smoke test was to hack kexec_file_load() systemcall which has two problems:
      1. My initramfs in the porduction kernel does not have a new enough kexec version, that's not a blocker but where the week ended
      2. As the crash kernel is part of init.data it will be already stale once I can call kexec_file_load() from user-space.

    The solution is probably to rewrite the POC so that the invocation can be done from init.text (that's my theory) but I'm not sure if I can reuse the kexec infrastructure in the kernel from there, which I rely on heavily.

    update HW24

    • Day1
      • rebased on v6.12 with no problems others then me breaking the config
      • setting up a new compilation and qemu/virtme env
      • getting desperate as nothing works that used to work
    • Day 2
      • getting to call the invocation of loading the early kernel from __init after kcsan_init()

    • Day 3

      • fix problem of memdup not being able to alloc so much memory... use 64K page sizes for now
      • code refactoring
      • I'm now able to load the crash kernel
      • When using virtme I can boot into the crash kernel, also it doesn't boot completely (major milestone!), crash in elfcorehdr_read_notes()

    • Day 4

      • crash systems crashes (no pun intended) in copy_old_mempage() link; will need to understand elfcorehdr...
      • call path vmcore_init() -> parse_crash_elf_headers() -> elfcorehdr_read() -> read_from_oldmem() -> copy_oldmem_page() -> copy_to_iter()

    • Day 5

      • hacking arch/arm64/kernel/crash_dump.c:copy_old_mempage() to see if crash system really starts. It does.
      • fun fact: retested with more reserved memory and with UEFI FW, host kernel crashes in init but directly starts the crash kernel, so it works (somehow) \o/

    • TODOs

      • fix elfcorehdr so that we actually can make use of all this...
      • test where in the boot __init() chain we can/should call kexec_early_dump()

    Improve various phones kernel mainline support (Qualcomm, Exynos, MediaTek) by pvorel

    Similar to previous hackweeks ( https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/improve-qualcomm-soc-msm8994-slash-msm8992-kernel-mainline-support, https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/test-mainline-kernel-on-an-older-qualcomm-soc-msm89xx-explore-mainline-kernel-qualcomm-mainlining) try to improve kernel mainline support of various phones.

    Result

    In the end I concentrated again to msm8994:

    Modularization and Modernization of cifs.ko for Enhanced SMB Protocol Support by hcarvalho

    Creator:
    Enzo Matsumiya ematsumiya@suse.de @ SUSE Samba team
    Members:
    Henrique Carvalho henrique.carvalho@suse.com @ SUSE Samba team

    Description

    Split cifs.ko in 2 separate modules; one for SMB 1.0 and 2.0.x, and another for SMB 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1.1.

    Goals

    Primary

    Start phasing out/deprecation of older SMB versions

    Secondary

    • Clean up of the code (with focus on the newer versions)
    • Update cifs-utils
    • Update documentation
    • Improve backport workflow (see below)

    Technical details

    Ideas for the implementation.

    • fs/smb/client/{old,new}.c to generate the respective modules
      • Maybe don't create separate folders? (re-evaluate as things progresses!)
    • Remove server->{ops,vals} if possible
    • Clean up fs_context.* -- merge duplicate options into one, handle them in userspace utils
    • Reduce code in smb2pdu.c -- tons of functions with very similar init/setup -> send/recv -> handle/free flow
    • Restructure multichannel
      • Treat initial connection as "channel 0" regardless of multichannel enabled/negotiated status, proceed with extra channels accordingly
      • Extra channel just point to "channel 0" as the primary server, no need to allocate an extra TCPServerInfo for each one
    • Authentication mechanisms
      • Modernize algorithms (references: himmelblau, IAKERB/Local KDC, SCRAM, oauth2 (Azure), etc.

    Improve UML page fault handler by ptesarik

    Description

    Improve UML handling of segmentation faults in kernel mode. Although such page faults are generally caused by a kernel bug, it is annoying if they cause an infinite loop, or panic the kernel. More importantly, a robust implementation allows to write KUnit tests for various guard pages, preventing potential kernel self-protection regressions.

    Goals

    Convert the UML page fault handler to use oops_* helpers, go through a few review rounds and finally get my patch series merged in 6.14.

    Resources

    Wrong initial attempt: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20231215121431.680-1-petrtesarik@huaweicloud.com/T/

    Improve various phones kernel mainline support (Qualcomm, Exynos, MediaTek) by pvorel

    Similar to previous hackweeks ( https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/improve-qualcomm-soc-msm8994-slash-msm8992-kernel-mainline-support, https://hackweek.opensuse.org/projects/test-mainline-kernel-on-an-older-qualcomm-soc-msm89xx-explore-mainline-kernel-qualcomm-mainlining) try to improve kernel mainline support of various phones.

    Result

    In the end I concentrated again to msm8994:

    Investigate non-booting Forlinx OKMX8MX-C board (aarch64) by a_faerber

    Description

    In the context of a SUSE customer inquiry last year, a Forlinx OKMX8MX-C arm64 board had been relayed to me from China that a customer was not successful booting SUSE Linux Micro on. Typically this happens when the vendor's bootloader (e.g., U-Boot) is not configured properly (e.g., U-Boot's distro boot) to be compliant with Arm SystemReady Devicetree (formerly IR) band. Unfortunately I could not immediately get it to emit any output, to even diagnose why it wasn't working. There was no public documentation on the vendor's website to even confirm I was checking the right UARTs.

    Earlier this year (2024) I happened to meet the ODM/OEM, Forlinx, at Embedded World 2024 in Nuremberg and again the Monday before Hackweek 24 at Electronica 2024 in Munich. The big puzzle was that the PCB print "OKMX8MX-C" does not match any current Forlinx product, there being OKMX8MM-C and OKMX8MP-C products with the Mini and Plus variants of NXP i.MX 8M family instead. One suggestion from Forlinx staff was to double-check the DIP switches on the board for boot mode selection.

    Goals

    Double-check the board name and investigate further what may be wrong with this board.

    Resources

    none

    Progress

    • The board name is indeed as spelled above, not matching any product on forlinx.net.
    • The DIP switches were set to boot from microSD.
    • Changing the DIP switches to eMMC boot did result in UART1 RS-232 output! (although at times garbled with the cable supplied and USB adapter used)
    • As feared, it did not automatically load our GRUB from USB.
    • Booting our GRUB manually from USB (via eMMC U-Boot commands fatload+bootefi) was unsuccessful, with partially Chinese error messages.
    • This confirmed the initial suspicion, already shared with Forlinx at Embedded World 2024, that the Forlinx System-on-Module's boot firmware was not Arm SystemReady Devicetree compliant and that a firmware update would be necessary to remedy that.
    • The microSD card turned out not to contain a bootable image but to only include Chinese-language board documentation (dated 20220507) and BSP files. They used a diverging name of OKMX8MQ-C.

    Explore simple and distro indipendent declarative Linux starting on Tumbleweed or Arch Linux by janvhs

    Description

    Inspired by mkosi the idea is to experiment with a declarative approach of defining Linux systems. A lot of tools already make it possible to manage the systems infrastructure by using description files, rather than manual invocation. An example for this are systemd presets for managing enabled services or the /etc/fstab file for describing how partitions should be mounted.

    If we would take inspiration from openSUSE MicroOS and their handling of the /etc/ directory, we could theoretically use systemd-sysupdate to swap out the /usr/ partition and create an A/B boot scheme, where the /usr/ partition is always freshly built according to a central system description. In the best case it would be possible to still utilise snapshots, but an A/B root scheme would be sufficient for the beginning. This way you could get the benefit of NixOS's declarative system definition, but still use the distros package repositories and don't have to deal with the overhead of Flakes or the Nix language.

    Goals

    • A simple and understandable system
    • Check fitness of mkosi or write a simple extensible image builder tool for it
    • Create a declarative system specification
    • Create a system with swappable /usr/ partition
    • Create an A/B root scheme
    • Swap to the new system without reboot (kexec?)

    Resources

    • Ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while
    • https://0pointer.net/blog/fitting-everything-together.html
    • GNOME OS
    • MicroOS
    • systemd mkosi
    • Vanilla OS

    Contributing to Linux Kernel security by pperego

    Description

    A couple of weeks ago, I found this blog post by Gustavo Silva, a Linux Kernel contributor.

    I always strived to start again into hacking the Linux Kernel, so I asked Coverity scan dashboard access and I want to contribute to Linux Kernel by fixing some minor issues.

    I want also to create a Linux Kernel fuzzing lab using qemu and syzkaller

    Goals

    1. Fix at least 2 security bugs
    2. Create the fuzzing lab and having it running

    The story so far

    • Day 1: setting up a virtual machine for kernel development using Tumbleweed. Reading a lot of documentation, taking confidence with Coverity dashboard and with procedures to submit a kernel patch
    • Day 2: I read really a lot of documentation and I triaged some findings on Coverity SAST dashboard. I have to confirm that SAST tool are great false positives generator, even for low hanging fruits.
    • Day 3: Working on trivial changes after I read this blog post: https://www.toblux.com/posts/2024/02/linux-kernel-patches.html. I have to take confidence with the patch preparation and submit process yet.
      • First trivial patch sent: using strtruefalse() macro instead of hard-coded strings in a staging driver for a lcd display
      • Fix for a dereference before null check issue discovered by Coverity (CID 1601566) https://scan7.scan.coverity.com/#/project-view/52110/11354?selectedIssue=1601566
    • Day 4: Triaging more issues found by Coverity.
      • The patch for CID 1601566 was refused. The check against the NULL pointer was pointless so I prepared a version 2 of the patch removing the check.
      • Fixed another dereference before NULL check in iwlmvmparsewowlaninfo_notif() routine (CID 1601547). This one was already submitted by another kernel hacker :(
    • Day 5: Wrapping up. I had to do some minor rework on patch for CID 1601566. I found a stalker bothering me in private emails and people I interacted with me, advised he is a well known bothering person. Markus Elfring for the record.

    • Wrapping up: being back doing kernel hacking is amazing and I don't want to stop it. My battery pack is completely drained but changing the scope gave me a great twist and I really want to feel this energy not doing a single task for months.

      I failed in setting up a fuzzing lab but I was too optimistic for the patch submission process.

    The patches

    1

    toptop - a top clone written in Go by dshah

    Description

    toptop is a clone of Linux's top CLI tool, but written in Go.

    Goals

    Learn more about Go (mainly bubbletea) and Linux

    Resources

    GitHub

    VulnHeap by r1chard-lyu

    Description

    The VulnHeap project is dedicated to the in-depth analysis and exploitation of vulnerabilities within heap memory management. It focuses on understanding the intricate workflow of heap allocation, chunk structures, and bin management, which are essential to identifying and mitigating security risks.

    Goals

    • Familiarize with heap
      • Heap workflow
      • Chunk and bin structure
      • Vulnerabilities
    • Vulnerability
      • Use after free (UAF)
      • Heap overflow
      • Double free
    • Use Docker to create a vulnerable environment and apply techniques to exploit it

    Resources

    • https://heap-exploitation.dhavalkapil.com/divingintoglibc_heap
    • https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cloudburst/libheap/master/heap.png
    • https://github.com/shellphish/how2heap?tab=readme-ov-file

    Testing and adding GNU/Linux distributions on Uyuni by juliogonzalezgil

    Join the Gitter channel! https://gitter.im/uyuni-project/hackweek

    Uyuni is a configuration and infrastructure management tool that saves you time and headaches when you have to manage and update tens, hundreds or even thousands of machines. It also manages configuration, can run audits, build image containers, monitor and much more!

    Currently there are a few distributions that are completely untested on Uyuni or SUSE Manager (AFAIK) or just not tested since a long time, and could be interesting knowing how hard would be working with them and, if possible, fix whatever is broken.

    For newcomers, the easiest distributions are those based on DEB or RPM packages. Distributions with other package formats are doable, but will require adapting the Python and Java code to be able to sync and analyze such packages (and if salt does not support those packages, it will need changes as well). So if you want a distribution with other packages, make sure you are comfortable handling such changes.

    No developer experience? No worries! We had non-developers contributors in the past, and we are ready to help as long as you are willing to learn. If you don't want to code at all, you can also help us preparing the documentation after someone else has the initial code ready, or you could also help with testing :-)

    The idea is testing Salt and Salt-ssh clients, but NOT traditional clients, which are deprecated.

    To consider that a distribution has basic support, we should cover at least (points 3-6 are to be tested for both salt minions and salt ssh minions):

    1. Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
    2. Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
    3. Package management (install, remove, update...)
    4. Patching
    5. Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
    6. Salt remote commands
    7. Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
    8. Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
    9. Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)
    10. Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)

    If something is breaking: we can try to fix it, but the main idea is research how supported it is right now. Beyond that it's up to each project member how much to hack :-)

    • If you don't have knowledge about some of the steps: ask the team
    • If you still don't know what to do: switch to another distribution and keep testing.

    This card is for EVERYONE, not just developers. Seriously! We had people from other teams helping that were not developers, and added support for Debian and new SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE Leap versions :-)

    Pending

    FUSS

    FUSS is a complete GNU/Linux solution (server, client and desktop/standalone) based on Debian for managing an educational network.

    https://fuss.bz.it/

    Seems to be a Debian 12 derivative, so adding it could be quite easy.

    • [W] Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
    • [W] Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap script, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator) --> Working for all 3 options (salt minion UI, salt minion bootstrap script and salt-ssh minion from the UI).
    • [W] Package management (install, remove, update...) --> Installing a new package works, needs to test the rest.
    • [I] Patching (if patch information is available, could require writing some code to parse it, but IIRC we have support for Ubuntu already). No patches detected. Do we support patches for Debian at all?
    • [W] Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
    • [W] Salt remote commands
    • [ ] Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement