Re: [RFC PATCH 0/5] crash dump bitmap: scan memory pages in kernel to speedup kernel dump process

Jingbai Ma
2013-03-12T10:05:20Z

On 03/11/2013 05:42 PM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Jingbai Ma<jingbai.ma@hp.com> writes:
>
>> On 03/08/2013 11:52 PM, Vivek Goyal wrote:
>>> On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 01:54:45PM -0800, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>>>> Vivek Goyal<vgoyal@redhat.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 07, 2013 at 10:58:18PM +0800, Jingbai Ma wrote:
>>>>>> This patch intend to speedup the memory pages scanning process in
>>>>>> selective dump mode.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Test result (On HP ProLiant DL980 G7 with 1TB RAM, makedumpfile
>>>>>> v1.5.3):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Total scan Time
>>>>>> Original kernel
>>>>>> + makedumpfile v1.5.3 cyclic mode 1958.05 seconds
>>>>>> Original kernel
>>>>>> + makedumpfile v1.5.3 non-cyclic mode 1151.50 seconds
>>>>>> Patched kernel
>>>>>> + patched makedumpfile v1.5.3 17.50 seconds
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Traditionally, to reduce the size of dump file, dumper scans all memory
>>>>>> pages to exclude the unnecessary memory pages after capture kernel
>>>>>> booted, and scan it in userspace code (makedumpfile).
>>>>>
>>>>> I think this is not a good idea. It has several issues.
>>>>
>>>> Actually it does not appear to be doing any work in the first kernel.
>>>
>>> Looks like patch3 in series is doing that.
>>>
>>> machine_crash_shutdown(&fixed_regs);
>>> + generate_crash_dump_bitmap();
>>> machine_kexec(kexec_crash_image);
>>>
>>> So this bitmap seems to be being set just before transitioning into
>>> second kernel.
>>>
>>> I am sure you would not like this extra code in this path. :-)
>>
>> I was thought this function code is pretty simple, could be called
>> here safely.
>> If it's not proper for here, how about before the function
>> machine_crash_shutdown(&fixed_regs)?
>> Furthermore, could you explain the real risks to execute more codes here?
>
> The kernel is known bad. What is bad is unclear.
> Executing any extra code is a bad idea.
>
> The history here is that before kexec-on-panic there were lots of dump
> routines that did all of the crashdump logic in the kernel before they
> shutdown. They all worked beautifully during development, and on
> developers test machines and were absolutely worthless in real world
> situations.

I also have learned some from the old style kernel dump. Yes, they do
have some problems in real world situations. The primary problems come
from I/O operations (disk writing/network sending) and invalid page table.

>
> A piece of code that walks all of the page tables is most definitely
> opening itself up to all kinds of failure situations I can't even
> imagine.

Agree, invalid page table will cause disaster.
But even in the capture kernel with user space program, it may only
causes a core dump, user still have chance to dump the crashed system by
themselves with some special tools, It's possible, but should be very
rare in real world.
I doubt how many users be able to handle it in such kind of situations.
So in most cases, if page tables have corrupted, and can not dump it
normally, user would like to reboot the system directly.

>
> The only way that it would be ok to do this would be to maintain the
> bitmap in real time with the existing page table maintenance code,
> and that would only be ok if it did not add a performance penalty.

I also have a prototype that can trace the page table changes in real
time, but I still didn't test the performance penalty. I will test it
again if I have time.

>
> Every once in a great while there is a new cpu architecture feature
> we need to deal with, but otherwise the only thing that is ok to
> do on that code path is to reduce it until it much more closely
> resembles the glorified jump instruction that it really is.

Agree. But if we can find some solution that can be proved as robust as
a jump that may apply.

>
> Speaking of have you given this code any coverage testing with lkdtm?

Still not, But I will test it with lkdtm.
Before that, I would like to test the mmap() solution first.

Thanks for your very valuable comments, that helped me a lot!

>
> Eric
>

--
Jingbai Ma (jingbai.ma@hp.com)