makedumpfile-1.4.4: Support for LZO compression.

makedumpfile-1.4.4: Support for LZO compression.

[Atsushi Kumagai]

Hi,

makedumpfile version 1.4.4 is released.
Your comments/patches are welcome.

HATAYAMA-san implemented "Support for LZO compression" feature. 
Thanks, HATAYAMA-san.

This feature allows you to compress dump data by each page using 
lzo instead of zlib.

This feature is optional, the user has to prepare lzo library to use
it. Please see the README for more information.


Changelog:
o New feature
   Commits related to "Support for LZO compression"
    - [PATCH v3 1/4] Add LZO Support. (by HATAYAMA Daisuke) 7d6c0cb
    - [PATCH v3 2/4] Avoid LONG_MAX/ULONG_MAX redefinitions. (by HATAYAMA Daisuke) ab9c60b
    - [PATCH v3 3/4] Add help and manual messages about LZO compression support. 
      (by HATAYAMA Daisuke) 5e01993
    - [PATCH v3 4/4] Add build condition for LZO support. (by HATAYAMA Daisuke) b722ff7
   Other commit
    - [PATCH] Support newer kernels. (by Atsushi Kumagai) 4f39edb

o Bugfix
    - [PATCH] sadump: Check if given cpu is online in per-cpu related helper functions. 
      (by HATAYAMA Daisuke) 7844436

o TODO
    - Send the patch to the LKML to store some symbols in VMCOREINFO.
      (VtoP method for x86 remap allocator needs some symbols that
       relate to remap allocator.)
    - Support newer kernels (Especially DISCONTIGMEM).


Explanation of makedumpfile:
  To shorten the size of the dumpfile and the time of creating the
  dumpfile, makedumpfile copies only the necessary pages for analysis
  to the dumpfile from /proc/vmcore. You can specify the kind of
  unnecessary pages with dump_level. If you want to shorten the size
  further, enable the compression of the page data.

Download:
  You can download the latest makedumpfile from the following URL.
  Details of the change are written on the git page of the following site.
  https://sourceforge.net/projects/makedumpfile/

Method of installation:
  You can compile the makedumpfile command as follows;
  1. "tar -zxvf makedumpfile-x.y.z.tar.gz"
  2. "cd makedumpfile-x.y.z"
  3. "make; make install"

Usage:
  makedumpfile [-c] [-E] [-d dump_level] [-x vmlinux] dump_mem dump_file

Example:
  If you want to exclude pages filled by zero, cache pages, user pages
  and free pages and to enable compression, please execute the following
  command.

  # makedumpfile -c -d 31 -x vmlinux /proc/vmcore dumpfile


Thanks
Atsushi Kumagai

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Re: makedumpfile-1.4.4: Support for LZO compression.

[Bouchard Louis]

Hello Kumagai-san,

Le 30/05/2012 06:16, Atsushi Kumagai a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> makedumpfile version 1.4.4 is released.
> Your comments/patches are welcome.
> 
...
> 
> Changelog:
...
>    Other commit
>     - [PATCH] Support newer kernels. (by Atsushi Kumagai) 4f39edb
> 

I have been eagerly waiting for this release in order to address an
ongoing bug we have on ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin where makedumpfile
fails to generate the vmcoreinfo file :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/988512

My current test on the latest Ubuntu Precise kernel (3.2.0-24.39) show
that we still have the same issue :

> # /crashdata/tmp/usr/bin/makedumpfile -g /crashdata/kernel/linux-3.2.0/debian/linux-image-3.2.0-24-generic/boot/vmcoreinfo-3.2.0-24-generic -x /crashdata/kernel/linux-3.2.0/debian/build/build-generic/vmlinux
> generate_vmcoreinfo: Can't find the memory type.
> 
> makedumpfile Failed.

There seems to be some issue in get_mem_type() that I will try to debug
further. Please let me know if you have something specific that you want
me to test and/or try as I have everything needed.

Kind regards,

...Louis


-- 
Louis Bouchard
Backline Support Analyst
Canonical Ltd
Ubuntu support: http://landscape.canonical.com

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Re: makedumpfile-1.4.4: Support for LZO compression.

[Atsushi Kumagai]

Hello Louis,

On Thu, 31 May 2012 13:43:29 +0200
Bouchard Louis <louis.bouchard@canonical.com> wrote:

> Hello Kumagai-san,
> 
> Le 31/05/2012 12:48, Bouchard Louis a écrit :
> > 
> > There seems to be some issue in get_mem_type() that I will try to debug
> > further. Please let me know if you have something specific that you want
> > me to test and/or try as I have everything needed.
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > 
> > ...Louis
> > 
> > 
> 
> Here is some more details about the issue. I have recompiled
> makedumpfile with symbols in order to debug the issue. The following
> code seems to be interesting :
> 
> get_mem_type(void)
> {
> 	int ret;
> 
> 	if ((SIZE(page) == NOT_FOUND_STRUCTURE)
> 	    || (OFFSET(page.flags) == NOT_FOUND_STRUCTURE)
> 	    || (OFFSET(page._count) == NOT_FOUND_STRUCTURE)
> 	    || (OFFSET(page.mapping) == NOT_FOUND_STRUCTURE)) {
> 		ret = NOT_FOUND_MEMTYPE;
> 
> (gdb) p size_table.page
> $1 = 64
> (gdb) p offset_table.page
> $2 = {flags = 0, _count = -1, mapping = 8, lru = -1}
> 
> So offset_table.page._count = -1, which triggers the NOT_FOUND_MEMTYPE.
> 
> I am not familiar enough with this to conclude, but you might have an
> idea. I can have the vmlinux file made available to you if you want.
> 
> For information, I am also working with John Wright who is the debian
> package maintainer to assist him in packaging makedumpfile for Debian
> and Ubuntu.

I'm sorry, it seems a bug related to kernel 3.1 or later.
Even current makedumpfile can't get the offset of page._count and page.lru 
from vmlinux.

Thank you for your report. I will fix this bug.

BTW, do you need vmcoreinfo file ? If your purpose is only to generate dumpfile,
you can execute makedumpfile without -g option.
Because the vmcore generated by kernel 2.6.24 or later include the debug
information which makedumpfile need.

Example:

 $ makedumpfile vmcore dumpfile


Thanks
Atsushi Kumagai

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