.\" Copyright (C) 2010 Intel Corporation
.\" Author: Andi Kleen
.\"
.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
.\" permission notice identical to this one.
.\"
.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.  The author(s) assume no
.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
.\" the use of the information contained herein.  The author(s) may not
.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
.\" professionally.
.\"
.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
.\" %%%LICENSE_END
.\"
.TH KEXEC_LOAD 2 2014-08-19 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
kexec_load \- load a new kernel for later execution
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <linux/kexec.h>
.br
.BI "long kexec_load(unsigned long " entry ", unsigned long " nr_segments ","
.br
.BI "                struct kexec_segment *" segments \
", unsigned long " flags ");"

.IR Note :
There is no glibc wrapper for this system call; see NOTES.
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.BR kexec_load ()
system call loads a new kernel that can be executed later by
.BR reboot (2).
.PP
The
.I flags
argument is a bit mask that controls the operation of the call.
The following values can be specified in
.IR flags :
.TP
.BR KEXEC_ON_CRASH " (since Linux 2.6.13)"
Execute the new kernel automatically on a system crash.
.\" FIXME Explain in more detail how KEXEC_ON_CRASH is actually used
.TP
.BR KEXEC_PRESERVE_CONTEXT " (since Linux 2.6.27)"
Preserve the system hardware and
software states before executing the new kernel.
This could be used for system suspend.
This flag is available only if the kernel was configured with
.BR CONFIG_KEXEC_JUMP ,
and is effective only if
.I nr_segments
is greater than 0.
.PP
The high-order bits (corresponding to the mask 0xffff0000) of
.I flags
contain the architecture of the to-be-executed kernel.
Specify (OR) the constant
.B KEXEC_ARCH_DEFAULT
to use the current architecture,
or one of the following architecture constants
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_386 ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_68K ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_X86_64 ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_PPC ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_PPC64 ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_IA_64 ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_ARM ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_S390 ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_SH ,
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_MIPS ,
and
.BR KEXEC_ARCH_MIPS_LE .
The architecture must be executable on the CPU of the system.

The
.I entry
argument is the physical entry address in the kernel image.
The
.I nr_segments
argument is the number of segments pointed to by the
.I segments
pointer;
the kernel imposes an (arbitrary) limit of 16 on the number of segments.
The
.I segments
argument is an array of
.I kexec_segment
structures which define the kernel layout:
.in +4n
.nf

struct kexec_segment {
    void   *buf;        /* Buffer in user space */
    size_t  bufsz;      /* Buffer length in user space */
    void   *mem;        /* Physical address of kernel */
    size_t  memsz;      /* Physical address length */
};
.fi
.in
.PP
.\" FIXME Explain the details of how the kernel image defined by segments
.\" is copied from the calling process into previously reserved memory.
The kernel image defined by
.I segments
is copied from the calling process into previously reserved memory.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success,
.BR kexec_load ()
returns 0.
On error, \-1 is returned and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EBUSY
Another crash kernel is already being loaded
or a crash kernel is already in use.
.TP
.B EINVAL
.I flags
is invalid; or
.IR nr_segments
is too large
.\" KEXEC_SEGMENT_MAX == 16
.TP
.B EPERM
The caller does not have the
.BR CAP_SYS_BOOT
capability.
.SH VERSIONS
The
.BR kexec_load ()
system call first appeared in Linux 2.6.13.
.SH CONFORMING TO
This system call is Linux-specific.
.SH NOTES
Currently, there is no glibc support for
.BR kexec_load ().
Call it using
.BR syscall (2).
.PP
The required constants are in the Linux kernel source file
.IR linux/kexec.h ,
which is not currently exported to glibc.
.\" FIXME . Andi submitted a patch for this.
.\" Check if it got accepted later.
Therefore, these constants must be defined manually.

This system call is available only if the kernel was configured with
.BR CONFIG_KEXEC .
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR reboot (2),
.BR syscall (2)
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.74 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page,
can be found at
\%http://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.