linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] sysrq, kdump: fix regression, revert "simplify sysrq-c handler"

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Message-ID: <20090721110857.GA21612@hmsreliant.think-freely.org>
Date:	Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:08:57 -0400
From:	Neil Horman <nhorman@...driver.com>
To:	Hidetoshi Seto <seto.hidetoshi@...fujitsu.com>
Cc:	Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...hat.com>,
	Brayan Arraes <brayan@...k.com.br>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Ken'ichi Ohmichi <oomichi@....nes.nec.co.jp>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] sysrq, kdump: fix regression, revert "simplify sysrq-c
	handler"

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 03:49:22PM +0900, Hidetoshi Seto wrote:
> Lai Jiangshan wrote:
> > 1) This fix breaks our tools.
> >       This fix changes the ABI. panic_on_oops is default 0,
> >    and a lots system do not specify the boot option "panic",
> >    thus, Sysrq-c will not cause CrashDump(Kdump) as expected.
> > 
> > 2) When CONFIG_KEXEC=n, Sysrq-c should become an invalid
> >    command like Sysrq-D(CONFIG_LOCKDEP, show-all-locks).
> >    But this fix makes it a valid command and let it do a
> >    hazard thing: cause a page fault(NULL dereference) in kernel.
> > 
> > So, we revert this fix.
> > 
> > |commit d6580a9f15238b87e618310c862231ae3f352d2d
> > |Author: Neil Horman <nhorman@...driver.com>
> > |Date:   Wed Jun 17 16:28:17 2009 -0700
> > 
> > |    kexec: sysrq: simplify sysrq-c handler
> > 
> > |    Currently the sysrq-c handler is bit over-engineered.  Its behavior is
> > |    dependent on a few compile time and run time factors that alter its
> > |    behavior which is really unnecessecary.
> > 
> > |    If CONFIG_KEXEC is not configured, sysrq-c, crashes the system with a NULL
> > |    pointer dereference.  If CONFIG_KEXEC is configured, it calls crash_kexec
> > |    directly, which implies that the kexec kernel will either be booted (if
> > |    its been previously loaded), or it will simply do nothing (the no kexec
> > |    kernel has been loaded).
> > 
> > |    It would be much easier to just simplify the whole thing to dereference a
> > |    NULL pointer all the time regardless of configuration.  That way, it will
> > |    always try to crash the system, and if a kexec kernel has been loaded into
> > |    reserved space, it will still boot from the page fault trap handler
> > |    (assuming panic_on_oops is set appropriately).
> > 
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Lai Jiangshan <laijs@...fujitsu.com>
> > ---
> 
> FYI, this problem has already pointed by Ohmichi-san and this will be an
> another patch for the following discussion:
>   http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/kexec/2009-July/003433.html
> You can find my sloppy memo in:
>   http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/kexec/2009-July/003443.html
> 
> I agree with you that SysRq-'c' is well known as for 'C'rashdump, and it is
> not expected as 'C'rash without dump.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> H.Seto
> 
> 
None of this answers Erics question, what is it that you could do before, that
you couldn't do now?  There are reasons to want to have a convienient way to
crash the kernel, other than to test kdump (several distributions have augmented
sysrq-c to do this for some time to test other previous dump mechanisms and
features), so while its not been upstream, saying that its well known to test
kdump without causing an oops is a bit of a misleading statement.  It seems to
me that right now your major complaint is that the documentation is out of date,
and you're having to do things slightly differently to get the same behavioral
results.  Would it solve your issue, if we simply updated the documentation to
illustrate how it works now?

Neil

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