Re: [PATCH] arm64/linux: Remove magic number header field check

[Daniel Kiper]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 04:51:57PM +0200, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> The 'ARM\x64' magic number in the file header identifies an image as one
> that implements the bare metal boot protocol, allowing the loader to
> simply move the file to a suitably aligned address in memory, with
> sufficient headroom for the trailing .bss segment (the required memory
> size is described in the header as well).
>
> Note of this matters for GRUB, as it only supports EFI boot. EFI does
> not care about this magic number, and nor should GRUB: this prevents us
> from booting other PE linux images, such as the generic EFI zboot
> decompressor, which is a pure PE/COFF image, and does not implement the
> bare metal boot protocol.
>
> So drop the magic number check.
>
> Signed-off-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>

Reviewed-by: Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@oracle.com>

Daniel