Michal Simek 94c5c0835b efi_loader: avoid superfluous variable store writes on unchanged data ...

Every SetVariable() call triggers efi_var_mem_ins() followed by
efi_var_to_storage(), even when the variable value is not actually
changing. This is unfriendly to flash-backed stores that suffer
wear from unnecessary erase/write cycles.

Add a change-detection path to efi_var_mem_ins(): when size2 == 0
(i.e. not an append) and the caller passes a non-NULL changep flag,
look up the existing variable and compare attributes, length, time
and data byte-by-byte. If everything matches, set *changep = false
and return EFI_SUCCESS without touching the variable buffer.

Both efi_set_variable_int() and efi_set_variable_runtime() now
check the flag and skip efi_var_mem_del() / efi_var_to_storage()
when nothing changed.

Introduce efi_memcmp_runtime() - a runtime-safe byte-by-byte memory
comparison helper, following the same pattern as the existing
efi_memcpy_runtime(). The standard memcmp() is not available after
ExitBootServices() and calling it from Linux will crash.

Tested-by: Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de>
Reviewed-by: Heinrich Schuchardt <xypron.glpk@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Michal Simek <michal.simek@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Ilias Apalodimas <ilias.apalodimas@linaro.org>

2026-03-14 08:14:20 +01:00

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