From: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@xxxxxxxxxx> commit c00b413a96261faef4ce22329153c6abd4acef25 upstream. The 5-level paging code parses the command line to look for the 'no5lvl' string, and does so very early, before sanitize_boot_params() has been called and has been given the opportunity to wipe bogus data from the fields in boot_params that are not covered by struct setup_header, and are therefore supposed to be initialized to zero by the bootloader. This triggers an early boot crash when using syslinux-efi to boot a recent kernel built with CONFIG_X86_5LEVEL=y and CONFIG_EFI_STUB=n, as the 0xff padding that now fills the unused PE/COFF header is copied into boot_params by the bootloader, and interpreted as the top half of the command line pointer. Fix this by sanitizing the boot_params before use. Note that there is no harm in calling this more than once; subsequent invocations are able to spot that the boot_params have already been cleaned up. Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> # v6.1+ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250306155915.342465-2-ardb+git@xxxxxxxxxx Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/202503041549.35913.ulrich.gemkow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- arch/x86/boot/compressed/pgtable_64.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) --- a/arch/x86/boot/compressed/pgtable_64.c +++ b/arch/x86/boot/compressed/pgtable_64.c @@ -1,6 +1,7 @@ // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 #include "misc.h" #include <asm/bootparam.h> +#include <asm/bootparam_utils.h> #include <asm/e820/types.h> #include <asm/processor.h> #include "pgtable.h" @@ -107,6 +108,7 @@ asmlinkage void configure_5level_paging( bool l5_required = false; /* Initialize boot_params. Required for cmdline_find_option_bool(). */ + sanitize_boot_params(bp); boot_params_ptr = bp; /* Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from ardb@xxxxxxxxxx are queue-6.12/x86-boot-sanitize-boot-params-before-parsing-command-line.patch