initramfs loaded at the same place as model-specific dtb

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
25/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
linux, raspberry-pi

Research direction

Start with the initramfs setting in config.txt and the reported bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb load address. Reproduce the encrypted-disk boot if possible, then collect the requested vcdbg log msg output and compare the addresses and timing. Done means confirming whether the overlapping loads cause the kernel panic and documenting a verified fix or workaround.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

I've been working on getting a Pi with an encrypted disk. Using the latest Raspbian it almost works but often gets a kernel panic on boot.

Using the vcdbg command I find that the device-specific dtb (in my case bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb) and initramfs are both loaded at the same address. The reason it appears to sometimes work is that I think there is a race condition on decompressing the initramfs so that sometimes it gets done before the corruption occurs.

I don't have the specific Pi on me rigth now but I'll add the output for vcdgb log msg as soon as I can.

In the meantime, the initramfs command in config.txt allows various other addresses rather than "followkernel". A workaround may be to load it elsewhere. Please feel free to comment.

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