From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
To: mm-commits@vger.kernel.org,leitao@debian.org,akpm@linux-foundation.org
Subject: [to-be-updated] documentation-document-panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure-sysctl.patch removed from -mm tree
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:50:16 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260630205017.26F301F000E9@smtp.kernel.org> (raw)
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The quilt patch titled
Subject: Documentation: document panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure sysctl
has been removed from the -mm tree. Its filename was
documentation-document-panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure-sysctl.patch
This patch was dropped because an updated version will be issued
------------------------------------------------------
From: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Subject: Documentation: document panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure sysctl
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:33:19 -0700
Add documentation for the new vm.panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure
sysctl, describing which failures trigger a panic (kernel-owned pages the
handler cannot recover) and which are intentionally left out (transient
allocator races and unclassified pages).
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260626-ecc_panic-v10-5-6dacb8ad024d@debian.org
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
Cc: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Cc: Liam R. Howlett <liam@infradead.org>
Cc: Lorenzo Stoakes <ljs@kernel.org>
Cc: "Masami Hiramatsu (Google)" <mhiramat@kernel.org>
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc: Miaohe Lin <linmiaohe@huawei.com>
Cc: Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.com>
Cc: Mike Rapoport <rppt@kernel.org>
Cc: Naoya Horiguchi <nao.horiguchi@gmail.com>
Cc: Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: Suren Baghdasaryan <surenb@google.com>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
---
Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst | 80 ++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 80 insertions(+)
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst~documentation-document-panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure-sysctl
+++ a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/vm.rst
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ Currently, these files are in /proc/sys/
- page-cluster
- page_lock_unfairness
- panic_on_oom
+- panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure
- percpu_pagelist_high_fraction
- stat_interval
- stat_refresh
@@ -925,6 +926,85 @@ panic_on_oom=2+kdump gives you very stro
why oom happens. You can get snapshot.
+panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure
+======================================
+
+When a hardware memory error (e.g. multi-bit ECC) hits a kernel page
+that cannot be recovered by the memory failure handler, the default
+behaviour is to ignore the error and continue operation. This is
+dangerous because the corrupted data remains accessible to the kernel,
+risking silent data corruption or a delayed crash when the poisoned
+memory is next accessed.
+
+When enabled, this sysctl triggers a panic on memory failure events
+hitting kernel-owned pages that the handler cannot recover:
+``PageReserved`` (firmware reservations, kernel image, vDSO, zero
+page, and similar memblock-reserved regions), ``PageSlab``,
+``PageTable``, and ``PageLargeKmalloc``. These are owned by the
+kernel and the memory failure handler cannot reliably evict their
+contents.
+
+Other unrecoverable kernel-owned populations (vmalloc allocations,
+kernel stack pages, ...) are not currently covered because the
+handler has no page-type signal that distinguishes them from a
+userspace folio temporarily off the LRU during migration or
+compaction. Such pages still go through the standard
+MF_MSG_GET_HWPOISON path: ``PG_hwpoison`` is set on them and a
+delayed crash on the next access remains possible. Coverage may
+grow as the handler gains stronger kernel-ownership signals.
+
+Recoverable failure paths are also intentionally left out: in-flight
+buddy allocations and other transient races with the page allocator
+can reach the same diagnostic, and panicking on them would risk
+killing the box for a page destined for userspace where the standard
+SIGBUS recovery path applies. Pages whose state could not be
+classified at all are not covered either, since an unknown state is
+not a sound basis for a panic decision.
+
+For many environments it is preferable to panic immediately with a clean
+crash dump that captures the original error context, rather than to
+continue and face a random crash later whose cause is difficult to
+diagnose.
+
+Use cases
+---------
+
+This option is most useful in environments where unattributed crashes
+are expensive to debug or where data integrity must take precedence
+over availability:
+
+* Large fleets, where multi-bit ECC errors on kernel pages are observed
+ regularly and post-mortem analysis of an unrelated downstream crash
+ (often seconds to minutes after the original error) consumes
+ significant engineering effort.
+
+* Systems configured with kdump, where panicking at the moment of the
+ hardware error produces a vmcore that still contains the faulting
+ address, the affected page state, and the originating MCE/GHES
+ record — context that is typically lost by the time a delayed crash
+ occurs.
+
+* High-availability clusters that rely on fast, deterministic node
+ failure for failover, and prefer an immediate panic over silent data
+ corruption propagating to replicas or persistent storage.
+
+* Kernel and platform developers reproducing hwpoison issues with
+ tools such as ``mce-inject`` or error-injection debugfs interfaces,
+ where panicking on the unrecoverable path makes regressions
+ immediately visible instead of surfacing as later, unrelated
+ failures.
+
+= =====================================================================
+0 Try to continue operation (default).
+1 Panic immediately. If the ``panic`` sysctl is also non-zero then the
+ machine will be rebooted.
+= =====================================================================
+
+Example::
+
+ echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure
+
+
percpu_pagelist_high_fraction
=============================
_
Patches currently in -mm which might be from leitao@debian.org are
mm-kmemleak-avoid-soft-lockup-when-scanning-task-stacks.patch
mm-kmemleak-stop-the-task-stack-scan-early-when-interrupted.patch
mm-kmemleak-stop-the-per-cpu-and-struct-page-scans-early-too.patch
a.patch
selftests-mm-add-hwpoison-panic-destructive-test.patch
mm-kmemleak-skip-the-remaining-scan-phases-when-interrupted.patch
next reply other threads:[~2026-06-30 20:50 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-06-30 20:50 Andrew Morton [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2026-04-27 16:00 [to-be-updated] documentation-document-panic_on_unrecoverable_memory_failure-sysctl.patch removed from -mm tree Andrew Morton
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