linux-kernel - Re: The policy on initramfs decompression failure

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Message-ID: <496E2419.4020802@zytor.com>
Date:	Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:42:49 -0800
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
CC:	Alain Knaff <alain@...ff.lu>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Al Viro <viro@....linux.org.uk>
Subject: Re: The policy on initramfs decompression failure

Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 
> By your argument the ton of warnings we emit in various situations are 
> wrong too and all should be panic()s. That argument is bogus.
> 

Thought about this whole thing some more, and it seems to me as follows:
what we really want, and need, is a "panic-level=X" option, where X will
naturally vary for differnet users.  I suspect there are many users
today who would prefer a panic (and reboot) on a KERN_CRIT message, even
at runtime.  For finer control, we need a message subsystem tag, but
that is something that would be highly desirable anyway.

As such, the initramfs decompression failure should be a KERN_CRIT or
KERN_ALERT message, and not a panic per se.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

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