From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755078Ab0A1OjF (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:39:05 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753083Ab0A1OjE (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:39:04 -0500 Received: from smtp.nokia.com ([192.100.122.233]:32920 "EHLO mgw-mx06.nokia.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752803Ab0A1OjB (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:39:01 -0500 Subject: Re: [PATCH] Provide ways of crashing the kernel through debugfs From: Artem Bityutskiy Reply-To: dedekind1@gmail.com To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Am=E9rico?= Wang Cc: Simon Kagstrom , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, David Woodhouse , Ingo Molnar In-Reply-To: <2375c9f91001261853t1158a66aw86546a61e613338f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20100126105640.6bf9488c@marrow.netinsight.se> <2375c9f91001260208t31379702tb49cb57d12d5890b@mail.gmail.com> <20100126111853.10890fc6@marrow.netinsight.se> <2375c9f91001261853t1158a66aw86546a61e613338f@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:38:02 +0200 Message-ID: <1264689482.1973.132.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.28.2 (2.28.2-1.fc12) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 28 Jan 2010 14:38:35.0100 (UTC) FILETIME=[923B29C0:01CAA027] X-Nokia-AV: Clean Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2010-01-27 at 10:53 +0800, Américo Wang wrote: > On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Simon Kagstrom > wrote: > > Hi Americo! > > > > On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:08:28 +0800 > > Américo Wang wrote: > > > >> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 5:56 PM, Simon Kagstrom > >> wrote: > >> > For development and testing it's sometimes useful to crash or injure the > >> > kernel in various ways. This patch adds a debugfs interface to provoke > >> > null-pointer dereferences, stack corruption, panics, bugons etc. For > >> > example: > >> > > >> > mount -t debugfs debugfs /mnt > >> > echo 1 > /mnt/provoke-crash/null_dereference > >> > > >> > Signed-off-by: Simon Kagstrom > >> > --- > >> > Obviously this feature is for debugging and testing only, and of > >> > interest to fairly few people. I've used it for testing the kmsg_dump > >> > stuff (hence the CC:s above) and kdump, and have found it fairly useful. > >> > > >> > If it's not of interest, at least this mail will be in the archives if > >> > someone else needs something like it :-) > >> > >> Hey, we already have /proc/sysrq-trigger, you need to state why > >> it is better than using /proc/sysrq-trigger. > > > > Well, it provides a few more ways of crashing the kernel. That's > > basically the only additional feature you'll get. > > > > Yeah, I can see that, but why do I need to care how I crash the kernel > as long as I can crash it in a way. But Simon did explain in his first e-mail why he cares. You or others might care for similar reasons. -- Best Regards, Artem Bityutskiy (Артём Битюцкий)