Re: [PATCH 1/2] ia64 kdump: add kdump_on_fatal_mca

[Jay Lan <jlan@sgi.com>]

Luck, Tony wrote:
>> I think kdump_on_fatal_mca should be set to 1 by default. Fatal
>> mca is exactly the case where we need a dump to analyze the problem.
> 
> I'm not so sure.  If the fatal MCA was caused by the s/w doing something
> wrong (e.g. accessing non-existant memory), then a dump is useful to find out
> what went wrong.
> 
> But if the MCA was caused by some h/w error (e.g. 2xECC bit error in kernel
> memory), then a dump won't help.
> 
> Perhaps the dump would help distinguish the s/w case from the h/w case?

With a dump, certainly it would be very clear, but that is not the
point.

When one puts aside a big chunk of memory for crashkernel. i think he
would like to get the dump when kernel crashes. Trying to recreate a
kernel crash on a large production system is expensive and  sometimes
not that readily reproducible.

Taking a dump on fatal MCA is the (default) bahavior today, isn't it?

- jay


> 
> -Tony
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