> from a kexec point of view I believe that the preferred option is the > former - shutdown the device so it can be initialised using standard paths > in the second kernel. OK... however I'm not suggesting a separate kexec initialization path, simply adding a reset of the device in the standard initialization. This would be fairly normal for other types of device; for example, the BIOS may have left a NIC in an undefined state due to network boot. Of course BIOS is unlikely to use an IOAT DMA engine but the principle of limiting assumptions about platform state still stands I think.
