No description
Find a file
Eric DeVolder a396d0f81b crash: change crash_prepare_elf64_headers() to for_each_possible_cpu()
The function crash_prepare_elf64_headers() generates the elfcorehdr which
describes the CPUs and memory in the system for the crash kernel.  In
particular, it writes out ELF PT_NOTEs for memory regions and the CPUs in
the system.

With respect to the CPUs, the current implementation utilizes
for_each_present_cpu() which means that as CPUs are added and removed, the
elfcorehdr must again be updated to reflect the new set of CPUs.

The reasoning behind the move to use for_each_possible_cpu(), is:

- At kernel boot time, all percpu crash_notes are allocated for all
  possible CPUs; that is, crash_notes are not allocated dynamically
  when CPUs are plugged/unplugged. Thus the crash_notes for each
  possible CPU are always available.

- The crash_prepare_elf64_headers() creates an ELF PT_NOTE per CPU.
  Changing to for_each_possible_cpu() is valid as the crash_notes
  pointed to by each CPU PT_NOTE are present and always valid.

Furthermore, examining a common crash processing path of:

 kernel panic -> crash kernel -> makedumpfile -> 'crash' analyzer
           elfcorehdr      /proc/vmcore     vmcore

reveals how the ELF CPU PT_NOTEs are utilized:

- Upon panic, each CPU is sent an IPI and shuts itself down, recording
 its state in its crash_notes. When all CPUs are shutdown, the
 crash kernel is launched with a pointer to the elfcorehdr.

- The crash kernel via linux/fs/proc/vmcore.c does not examine or
 use the contents of the PT_NOTEs, it exposes them via /proc/vmcore.

- The makedumpfile utility uses /proc/vmcore and reads the CPU
 PT_NOTEs to craft a nr_cpus variable, which is reported in a
 header but otherwise generally unused. Makedumpfile creates the
 vmcore.

- The 'crash' dump analyzer does not appear to reference the CPU
 PT_NOTEs. Instead it looks-up the cpu_[possible|present|onlin]_mask
 symbols and directly examines those structure contents from vmcore
 memory. From that information it is able to determine which CPUs
 are present and online, and locate the corresponding crash_notes.
 Said differently, it appears that 'crash' analyzer does not rely
 on the ELF PT_NOTEs for CPUs; rather it obtains the information
 directly via kernel symbols and the memory within the vmcore.

(There maybe other vmcore generating and analysis tools that do use these
PT_NOTEs, but 'makedumpfile' and 'crash' seems to be the most common
solution.)

This results in the benefit of having all CPUs described in the
elfcorehdr, and therefore reducing the need to re-generate the elfcorehdr
on CPU changes, at the small expense of an additional 56 bytes per PT_NOTE
for not-present-but-possible CPUs.

On systems where kexec_file_load() syscall is utilized, all the above is
valid.  On systems where kexec_load() syscall is utilized, there may be
the need for the elfcorehdr to be regenerated once.  The reason being that
some archs only populate the 'present' CPUs from the
/sys/devices/system/cpus entries, which the userspace 'kexec' utility uses
to generate the userspace-supplied elfcorehdr.  In this situation, one
memory or CPU change will rewrite the elfcorehdr via the
crash_prepare_elf64_headers() function and now all possible CPUs will be
described, just as with kexec_file_load() syscall.

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20230814214446.6659-8-eric.devolder@oracle.com
Signed-off-by: Eric DeVolder <eric.devolder@oracle.com>
Suggested-by: Sourabh Jain <sourabhjain@linux.ibm.com>
Reviewed-by: Sourabh Jain <sourabhjain@linux.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Hari Bathini <hbathini@linux.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Baoquan He <bhe@redhat.com>
Cc: Akhil Raj <lf32.dev@gmail.com>
Cc: Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>
Cc: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Cc: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Cc: Mimi Zohar <zohar@linux.ibm.com>
Cc: Naveen N. Rao <naveen.n.rao@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Cc: Oscar Salvador <osalvador@suse.de>
Cc: "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@kernel.org>
Cc: Sean Christopherson <seanjc@google.com>
Cc: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Thomas Weißschuh <linux@weissschuh.net>
Cc: Valentin Schneider <vschneid@redhat.com>
Cc: Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
2023-08-24 16:25:14 -07:00
arch crash: hotplug support for kexec_load() 2023-08-24 16:25:14 -07:00
block block-6.5-2023-07-21 2023-07-22 11:05:15 -07:00
certs KEYS: Add missing function documentation 2023-04-24 16:15:52 +03:00
crypto crypto: algif_hash - Fix race between MORE and non-MORE sends 2023-07-08 22:48:42 +10:00
Documentation crash: memory and CPU hotplug sysfs attributes 2023-08-24 16:25:14 -07:00
drivers crash: memory and CPU hotplug sysfs attributes 2023-08-24 16:25:14 -07:00
fs kill do_each_thread() 2023-08-21 13:46:25 -07:00
include crash: hotplug support for kexec_load() 2023-08-24 16:25:14 -07:00
init treewide: drop CONFIG_EMBEDDED 2023-08-21 13:46:25 -07:00
io_uring io_uring-6.5-2023-07-28 2023-07-28 10:19:44 -07:00
ipc ipc/sem: use flexible array in 'struct sem_undo' 2023-08-18 10:18:51 -07:00
kernel crash: change crash_prepare_elf64_headers() to for_each_possible_cpu() 2023-08-24 16:25:14 -07:00
lib kstrtox: consistently use _tolower() 2023-08-21 13:46:25 -07:00
LICENSES LICENSES: Add the copyleft-next-0.3.1 license 2022-11-08 15:44:01 +01:00
mm lib/vsprintf: declare no_hash_pointers in sprintf.h 2023-08-21 13:46:24 -07:00
net A patch to reduce the potential for erroneous RBD exclusive lock 2023-07-28 10:47:24 -07:00
rust rust: error: impl Debug for Error with errname() integration 2023-06-13 01:24:42 +02:00
samples arm64: ftrace: Add direct call trampoline samples support 2023-07-10 17:51:54 -04:00
scripts scripts/bloat-o-meter: count weak symbol sizes 2023-08-21 13:46:25 -07:00
security security: keys: perform capable check only on privileged operations 2023-07-28 18:07:41 +00:00
sound ASoC: Fixes for v6.5 2023-07-27 14:54:23 +02:00
tools treewide: drop CONFIG_EMBEDDED 2023-08-21 13:46:25 -07:00
usr initramfs: Encode dependency on KBUILD_BUILD_TIMESTAMP 2023-06-06 17:54:49 +09:00
virt KVM: Grab a reference to KVM for VM and vCPU stats file descriptors 2023-07-29 11:05:28 -04:00
.clang-format iommu: Add for_each_group_device() 2023-05-23 08:15:51 +02:00
.cocciconfig
.get_maintainer.ignore get_maintainer: add Alan to .get_maintainer.ignore 2022-08-20 15:17:44 -07:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set diff driver for Rust source code files 2023-05-31 17:48:25 +02:00
.gitignore Revert ".gitignore: ignore *.cover and *.mbx" 2023-07-04 15:05:12 -07:00
.mailmap mailmap: update remaining active codeaurora.org email addresses 2023-07-27 13:07:05 -07:00
.rustfmt.toml rust: add .rustfmt.toml 2022-09-28 09:02:20 +02:00
COPYING
CREDITS - Address -Wmissing-prototype warnings 2023-06-26 16:43:54 -07:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v6.1 2022-10-10 12:00:45 -07:00
Kconfig
MAINTAINERS USB fixes for 6.5-rc4 2023-07-30 11:57:51 -07:00
Makefile Linux 6.5-rc4 2023-07-30 13:23:47 -07:00
README

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.