From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Gerrit.Huizenga@us.ibm.com Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 01:01:52 +0000 Subject: Re: [Linux-ia64] Memory clearing at reboot Message-Id: List-Id: References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: linux-ia64@vger.kernel.org Having an ability to dump system memory to disk from an application other than the kernel that just crashed is a major serviceability feature for larger systems. I don't see it as being as useful on a one or two proc system, but post-mortem analysis is typically considered a major feature for people running departmental or large servers (e.g. Lion sized). Being only able to dump memory from inside of a dying kernel (a la NT) seems like a bad idea on a big box. Of course, if this is BIOS specific, people building larger machines (e.g. 4 proc or larger) can hopefully avoid this problem (e.g. here at IBM ;-). It would be more useful though if this were a feature of the standard Lion BIOS as well. gerrit > Hi John, > > Big Sur initializes it's memory only on power on; it does not do so on a > soft reboot. The behavior you are seeing should continue on all build of > our BIOS. > > I am waiting for the answer on the Lion machine and do not know if Lion team > can also enable this functionality. I will respond again once I have the > answer. (By the way, my gut feelings says that they will not be able to > enable this functionality.) > > Thanks > Sunil > > -----Original Message----- > From: John Baboval [mailto:baboval@mclinux.com] > Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 11:50 AM > To: linux-ia64@linuxia64.org > Subject: [Linux-ia64] Memory clearing at reboot > > > I have a small test program that I run at the EFI shell prompt to set an > area of memory and then perform a warm reboot. After the reboot our BigSur > still contains the values written, but the Lion is cleared to zero. (We > check the contents with the mem command, and the ResetSystem() is called > with the EfiResetWarm parameter.) > > Does anyone know if there is a way to cause the Lion *not* to clear memory? > Also, our Lion has newer firmware then the BigSur. Perhaps the newer > firmware causes the reset? > > If someone out there has a BigSur with the latest firmware/CPU rev., could > you run my program and tell me if your machine resets it's memory? The > source code is attached, and you can build it with gnu-efi-0.9. > > Basically, you run the program and write down the address, and then when the > machine comes back up type 'mem
' and see if the memory is zero or > not. > > Not reseting memory makes taking kernel core dumps with our in-memory core > dump patches MUCH easier! Thanks for any help, > > -- > --John > jbaboval@missioncriticallinux.com > > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-IA64 mailing list > Linux-IA64@linuxia64.org > http://lists.linuxia64.org/lists/listinfo/linux-ia64 >