Re: [PATCH & RFC] kdump and stack overflows

[Fernando Luis Vazquez Cao <fernando@intellilink.co.jp>]

On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 11:29 -0700, Eric W. Biederman wrote: 
> Fernando Luis Vazquez Cao <fernando@intellilink.co.jp> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 06:39 -0700, Eric W. Biederman wrote: 
> >> Fernando Luis Vazquez Cao <fernando@intellilink.co.jp> writes:
> 
> > Regarding the stack overflow audit of the nmi path, we have the problem
> > that both nmi_enter and nmi_exit in do_nmi (see code below) make heavy
> > use of "current" indirectly (specially through the kernel preemption
> > code).
> 
> Ok.  I wonder if it would be saner to simply replace the nmi trap
> handler on the crash dump path?
That seems to be the cleanest way to solve the problem. I will write a
patch implementing that and see how it works.

> >> I believe we have a separate interrupt stack that
> >> should help but..
> > Yes, when using 4K stacks we have a separate interrupt stack that should
> > help, but I am afraid that crash dumping is about being paranoid.
> 
> Oh I agree.  If we had a private 4K stack for the nmi handler we
> would not need to worry about overflow in that case.  (baring
> nmi happening during nmis)  Hmm.  Is there anything to keep
> us doing something bad in that case?
I think that is a sensible thing to do. I am just back from a day
off, but tomorrow I will take a closer look at this.

Regards,

Fernando