Re: [PATCH RFC] sysrq: rcu-ify __handle_sysrq

Jiri Kosina
2014-04-23T21:39:45Z

On Wed, 23 Apr 2014, Andrew Morton wrote:

> > Echoing values into /proc/sysrq-trigger seems to be a popular way to
> > get information out of the kernel. However, dumping information about
> > thousands of processes, or hundreds of CPUs to serial console can
> > result in IRQs being blocked for minutes, resulting in various kinds
> > of cascade failures.
> >
> > The most common failure is due to interrupts being blocked for a very
> > long time. This can lead to things like failed IO requests, and other
> > things the system cannot easily recover from.
>
> I bet nobody wants that console output anyway. You do the sysrq then
> run dmesg or look in /var/log/messages to see what happened. People
> who are experiencing problems such as this should run `dmesg -n 1'
> before writing to sysrq-trigger.

I don't agree. I have used sysrq-t multiple times in situations where
userspace was already dead, but sysrq was still able to provide valuable
information about the state of the kernel.

--
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs