Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Jan Engelhardt]

The /proc/sys/kernel/panic file looked to me like it was something like
/proc/sysrq-trigger -- until I looked into the kernel sources which reveal that
it sets the variable "panic_timeout" in kernel/sched.c.
I'm up for disambiguating this, patch appended.


Signed-off by: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de>

# File:  fixpanicname.diff
# Class: Disambiguation
#
--- linux-2.6.9-rc2/kernel/sysctl.c	2004-10-31 17:10:00.976522528 +0100
+++ modified/kernel/sysctl.c	2004-10-31 17:09:50.970043000 +0100
@@ -276,7 +276,7 @@ static ctl_table kern_table[] = {
 	},
 	{
 		.ctl_name	= KERN_PANIC,
-		.procname	= "panic",
+		.procname	= "panic_timeout",
 		.data		= &panic_timeout,
 		.maxlen		= sizeof(int),
 		.mode		= 0644,
## eof


Jan Engelhardt
-- 
Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung
Am Fassberg, 37077 Göttingen, www.gwdg.de

Re: Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Olaf Hering]

 On Sun, Oct 31, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

> 
> 
> The /proc/sys/kernel/panic file looked to me like it was something like
> /proc/sysrq-trigger -- until I looked into the kernel sources which reveal that
> it sets the variable "panic_timeout" in kernel/sched.c.

This will probably break applications that expect the filename 'panic'.

-- 
USB is for mice, FireWire is for men!

sUse lINUX ag, nÜRNBERG

Re: Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 01:02:27PM +0100, Olaf Hering wrote:
>  On Sun, Oct 31, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > The /proc/sys/kernel/panic file looked to me like it was something like
> > /proc/sysrq-trigger -- until I looked into the kernel sources which reveal that
> > it sets the variable "panic_timeout" in kernel/sched.c.
> 
> This will probably break applications that expect the filename 'panic'.

And why should applications care for the panic timeout?  Especially only
a few days after it's been added to the kernel?

Re: Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Jan Engelhardt]

>> > The /proc/sys/kernel/panic file looked to me like it was something like
>> > /proc/sysrq-trigger -- until I looked into the kernel sources which reveal that
>> > it sets the variable "panic_timeout" in kernel/sched.c.
>>
>> This will probably break applications that expect the filename 'panic'.
>
>And why should applications care for the panic timeout?  Especially only
>a few days after it's been added to the kernel?

So it's a brand new variable in sysctl after all? Well then I'd like the change
even more :)



Jan Engelhardt
-- 
Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung
Am Fassberg, 37077 Göttingen, www.gwdg.de

Re: Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Olaf Hering]

 On Mon, Nov 01, Christoph Hellwig wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 01:02:27PM +0100, Olaf Hering wrote:
> >  On Sun, Oct 31, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > The /proc/sys/kernel/panic file looked to me like it was something like
> > > /proc/sysrq-trigger -- until I looked into the kernel sources which reveal that
> > > it sets the variable "panic_timeout" in kernel/sched.c.
> > 
> > This will probably break applications that expect the filename 'panic'.
> 
> And why should applications care for the panic timeout?  Especially only
> a few days after it's been added to the kernel?

/proc/sys/kernel/panic exists since at least 2.6.5.
Its used to override the silly default '0' on i386, but one should be
able to boot with panic=$bignum

-- 
USB is for mice, FireWire is for men!

sUse lINUX ag, nÜRNBERG

Re: Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Ricky Beam]

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, Olaf Hering wrote:
>> And why should applications care for the panic timeout?  Especially only
>> a few days after it's been added to the kernel?
>
>/proc/sys/kernel/panic exists since at least 2.6.5.
>Its used to override the silly default '0' on i386, but one should be
>able to boot with panic=$bignum

/proc/sys/kernel/panic has been around for YEARS:

  [cramer:ttyp0]dominion:~/[10:52am]:uname -a
  Linux dominion 2.3.42-SMP #11 SMP Sun Feb 6 20:06:02 EST 2000 i686
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ****
  [cramer:ttyp0]dominion:~/[10:52am]:ls -l /proc/sys/kernel/panic
  -rw-r--r--   1 root     root            0 Nov  1 10:52 /proc/sys/kernel/panic

And that's the oldest kernel I happen to have running at the moment.

--Ricky

Re: Disambiguation for panic_timeout's sysctl

[Randy.Dunlap]

Olaf Hering wrote:
>  On Mon, Nov 01, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 01:02:27PM +0100, Olaf Hering wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Oct 31, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>The /proc/sys/kernel/panic file looked to me like it was something like
>>>>/proc/sysrq-trigger -- until I looked into the kernel sources which reveal that
>>>>it sets the variable "panic_timeout" in kernel/sched.c.
>>>
>>>This will probably break applications that expect the filename 'panic'.
>>
>>And why should applications care for the panic timeout?  Especially only
>>a few days after it's been added to the kernel?
> 
> 
> /proc/sys/kernel/panic exists since at least 2.6.5.
> Its used to override the silly default '0' on i386, but one should be
> able to boot with panic=$bignum

It's not new.  It's in 2.4.26.
And it's documented in Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt,
so any patch that changes it should also change that .txt file.



-- 
~Randy
MOTD:  Always include version info.
(Again.  Sometimes I think ln -s /usr/src/linux/.config .signature)