linux-kernel - Re: Determine version of kernel that produced vmcore

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Message-ID: <20070710165201.GA7984@localdomain>
Date:	Tue, 10 Jul 2007 19:52:01 +0300
From:	Dan Aloni <da-x@...atomic.org>
To:	Neil Horman <nhorman@...hat.com>
Cc:	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...ibm.com>,
	Ken'ichi Ohmichi <oomichi@....nes.nec.co.jp>,
	kexec@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Determine version of kernel that produced vmcore

On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 08:09:04AM -0400, Neil Horman wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 12:18:17PM +0530, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 05:58:04PM +0300, Dan Aloni wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jul 06, 2007 at 03:28:14PM +0200, Bernhard Walle wrote:
> > > > Hello,
[...]
> > > It contains enough information in order to make a compact kernel
> > > dump (makedumpinfo needs to go over the struct page arrays). As
> > > you see, it also contains the kernel version.
> > > 
> > 
> > But this will not solve Bernhard's problem where looking at a vmcore
> > he wants to know which vmlinux (kernel version with time stamp) has
> > generated this vmcore. So adding a ELF NOTE should help.
> > 
> I think an ELF note would be a fine idea.

Okay, so here's an implemenation.

See the attached proof-of-concept patches to the kernel-side kexec and 
kexec-tools (might need some cleanup though). Next to follow, a patch 
to makedumpfile. With these patches a new "LINUX" elf note generated 
by the kernel in the format that makedumpfile expects and is being 
passed on by the kexec util to the kdump kernel.

As a bonus, with this patch you don't even have to compile the kernel 
with debug information in order for the filtering to work.

As Vivek mentioned in another mail, the output of makedumpfile is not
really a standard. However, I believe we should start making standards
where no standard exists. :)

-- 
Dan Aloni
XIV LTD, http://www.xivstorage.com
da-x (at) monatomic.org, dan (at) xiv.co.il

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