linux-kernel - Re: [Patch 1/4][kernel][slimdump] Add new elf-note of type NT

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] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20111005180900.GJ30146@redhat.com>
Date:	Wed, 5 Oct 2011 14:09:00 -0400
From:	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...hat.com>
To:	Dave Anderson <anderson@...hat.com>
Cc:	Tony Luck <tony.luck@...el.com>,
	"K.Prasad" <prasad@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, crash-utility@...hat.com,
	kexec@...ts.infradead.org, Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	tachibana@....nes.nec.co.jp, oomichi@....nes.nec.co.jp,
	Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
Subject: Re: [Patch 1/4][kernel][slimdump] Add new elf-note of type
 NT_NOCOREDUMP to capture slimdump

On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 02:00:09PM -0400, Dave Anderson wrote:
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> > On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 07:20:37PM +0200, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 01:10:07PM -0400, Vivek Goyal wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Oct 05, 2011 at 08:58:53AM -0700, Luck, Tony wrote:
> > > > > > > The plan is to pass-down the list of poisoned memory pages
> > > > > > > to the second
> > > > > > > kernel using an elf-note so that these pages are left
> > > > > > > untouched during
> > > > > > > dump capture. I'm working on an implementation of the same
> > > > > > > and should
> > > > > > > have patches soon.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I would say let us first figure out what happens while
> > > > > > reading a poisoned
> > > > > > page and is this a problem before working on a solution.
> > > > > 
> > > > > If the page is poisoned because of a real uncorrectable error
> > > > > in memory
> > > > > (reported as SRAO machine check today, or by SRAR
> > > > > real-soon-now). Then
> > > > > accessing the page from the processor while taking a memory
> > > > > dump will
> > > > > result in a machine check.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Note that a large memory system that had been running for a
> > > > > long time
> > > > > may have built up a small stash of these land-mine pages - and
> > > > > we need
> > > > > to worry about them even in the case where the panic is not
> > > > > machine
> > > > > check related (in fact especially in this case ... we are in a
> > > > > case
> > > > > where we actually do want the dump to diagnose the cause of the
> > > > > panic,
> > > > > and we don't want to risk losing the crash dump because we
> > > > > aborted when
> > > > > touching a page that the OS had safely avoided for
> > > > > days/weeks/months).
> > > > > 
> > > > > So passing a list of poisoned pages from the old kernel to the
> > > > > new kernel
> > > > > is a good idea - and is independent of the cause of the crash
> > > > > (except that
> > > > > in the fatal machine check case due to memory error the list is
> > > > > guaranteed
> > > > > to be non-empty).
> > > > 
> > > > Whre is this poisoned page info stored? In struct page? If yes, then
> > > > user space can walk through it and make sure not to touch poisoned pages.
> > > > Anyway user space filtering utility "makedumpfile" walks through struct
> > > > pages to filter out the pages. It should be able to filter out
> > > > poisoned pages unconditionally. So there should be no need for kernel
> > > > to export a list of these pages.
> > > 
> > > Does this utility work on a vmcore dump? If so, Tony refers to the
> > > creation of the vmcore itself from the memory used by the first
> > > kernel.
> > 
> > No, this utitlity can directly work on /proc/vmcore where first kernel's
> > image is still in memory and not on disk.
> > 
> > > If there are poisoned pages, merely accessing that portion of DRAM
> > > containing the poisoned data would cause further MCEs in the freshly
> > > booted kernel so you won't be able to finish creating the dump.
> > 
> > As long as you can get to your struct page arrays, one should be able
> > to filter out poisoned pages without saving the whole dump.
> 
> It's still going to require a minimal kernel change because the
> PG_hwpoison flag's bit number differs depending upon the kernel
> configuration, if it exists at all.  An additional vmcoreinfo item
> probably...
> 

Yes, that kind of information we can export along with other info
in vmcoreinfo.

Thanks
Vivek
--
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/