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From: Tomasz Chmielewski <mangoo@wpkg.org>
To: LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: patch/option to wipe memory at boot?
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:38:53 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <46F25BCD.2070005@wpkg.org> (raw)

> Is there a patch or a boot option or something which wipes all
> available (physical) RAM at boot (or better, fills it with a fixed
> signature like 0xdeadbeef)?  I'm getting phony ECC errors and I'd like
> to test whether they go away when the RAM is properly initialized.
> Also, I'd like to know exactly which parts of RAM are being used and
> which are untouched since boot (hence the 0xdeadbeef signature).
> 
> If this patch/option doesn't exist, can anyone give me a hint as to
> where and how it would be best to add this?  (I'm afraid I'm very
> ignorant as to how Linux sets up its RAM mapping.)  I'm concerned
> about x86 and x86_64.
> 
> PS: I'm not finicky: it's all right if a couple of megabytes at the
> bottom of RAM are not scrubbed (I'm more interested about the top
> gigabyte-or-so), especially if they're guaranteed to be used by the
> kernel.

As a side note to what others said, you can always use initrd/initramfs 
to start your favourite program that wipes the memory...


-- 
Tomasz Chmielewski
http://blog.wpkg.org



             reply	other threads:[~2007-09-20 11:39 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-09-20 11:38 Tomasz Chmielewski [this message]
     [not found] <94rE7-89j-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
     [not found] ` <94tmJ-2EJ-77@gated-at.bofh.it>
     [not found]   ` <94vHE-6xa-11@gated-at.bofh.it>
     [not found]     ` <95cD1-7gI-31@gated-at.bofh.it>
2007-09-20 11:17       ` patch/option to wipe memory at boot? Bodo Eggert
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2007-09-17 15:51 David Madore
2007-09-17 18:11 ` Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2007-09-17 20:43   ` David Madore
2007-09-19 18:30     ` Chris Snook

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