Re: [PATCH printk v4 27/27] lockdep: Mark emergency sections in lockdep splats

[John Ogness <john.ogness@linutronix.de>]

On 2024-04-16, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> wrote:
>> Mark emergency sections wherever multiple lines of
>> lock debugging output are generated. In an emergency
>> section the CPU will not perform console output for the
>> printk() calls. Instead, a flushing of the console
>> output is triggered when exiting the emergency section.
>> This allows the full message block to be stored as
>> quickly as possible in the ringbuffer.
>
> I am confused, when in emergency I want the thing to dump everything to
> the atomic thing asap.

At LPC 2022 we discussed this and agreed that it is more appropriate to
get the full set of emergency printk messages into the ringbuffer
first. This is fast and lockless. Then we can begin the slow process of
printing.

Perhaps I am making these emergency sections too large. Maybe only
certain backtraces should use them. We will need to gain some experience
here.

> Storing it all up runs the risk of never getting to the 'complete' point
> because we're dead.

If no other debugging mechanisms are available to read the ringbuffer
and no other CPUs are alive to handle the printing: yes, we are
dead. But if the machine is dying so quickly, it would probably die
before getting the first line out anyway.

Note that by "dead" we mean an irresponsive system that does not panic.

John