linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86/mcheck/therm_throt.c: Don't log power limit and package level thermal throttle event in mce log

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:	Tue, 6 Dec 2011 11:26:03 -0800
From:	Tony Luck <tony.luck@...el.com>
To:	Borislav Petkov <bp@...64.org>
Cc:	"Yu, Fenghua" <fenghua.yu@...el.com>,
	H Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Brown, Len" <len.brown@...el.com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, x86 <x86@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86/mcheck/therm_throt.c: Don't log power limit and
 package level thermal throttle event in mce log

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Borislav Petkov <bp@...64.org> wrote:
> I can see all that. Still, I'm questioning the need for those printks. A
> user application polling the counters is a much better solution, IMHO,
> than spamming the logs. IOW, is there a strong reason to have this -
> even ratelimited - information in the logs and unnerve users, or, would
> it be better to collect this info somewhere queitly and present it only
> when something requests it?

Striking the right balance here is hard - if one has a BIOS that set the
thresholds at "interesting" values - then you certainly don't want to the
console to be spammed with a lot of useless junk.

But if there is a real problem - then having someone tell you later that
you should have been checking some obscure file in /sys to see that
some thermal/power limit events were being seen may not go over very
well.

When we have some comprehensive system health monitoring daemon
that does check these files, and can be configured to raise suitable alerts,
then the printks can go away.

-Tony
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/