Re: [ANNOUNCE] Merkey's Kernel Debugger

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Thu Aug 07 2008 - 22:28:44 EST


> panic() is the only place where kdump gets a chance to run first and
> panic notifiers are not executed.

To be fully clear panic() that is called outside oops/exception context

s/panic/die notifiers/

>
> To me so far only in kernel debugger seems to be a reasonable candiate

Yes a kernel debugger should be able to hook into panic()

In fact it can do that already by just setting a break point,
but clearly having a real notifier is preferable.

The use case would be then that the kernel debugger would
have some command to trigger a dump.

> which needs to run before kdump after a panic event. If a debugger
> is really getting merged into the kernel, then I think debugger can

kgdb is already merged. Also the x86 notifiers are general
enough that there are a couple of debuggers floating around
that are just using existing interfaces (as in need very little in terms
of core patching)

> put a hook in the panic() before kdump. Wouldn't this solve the problem?

Yes it would, but right now there is no such hook. Also if there
was such a hook kdump could use it like everyone else.

There's a priority scheme in notifiers so you can still run usually last.

-Andi
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/