mbox series

[RFC,00/14] introduce kmemdump

Message ID 20250422113156.575971-1-eugen.hristev@linaro.org
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Series introduce kmemdump | expand

Message

Eugen Hristev April 22, 2025, 11:31 a.m. UTC 
kmemdump is a mechanism which allows the kernel to mark specific memory
areas for dumping or specific backend usage.
Once regions are marked, kmemdump keeps an internal list with the regions
and registers them in the backend.
Further, depending on the backend driver, these regions can be dumped using
firmware or different hardware block.
Regions being marked beforehand, when the system is up and running, there
is no need nor dependency on a panic handler, or a working kernel that can
dump the debug information.
The kmemdump approach works when pstore, kdump, or another mechanism do not.
Pstore relies on persistent storage, a dedicated RAM area or flash, which
has the disadvantage of having the memory reserved all the time, or another
specific non volatile memory. Some devices cannot keep the RAM contents on
reboot so ramoops does not work. Some devices do not allow kexec to run
another kernel to debug the crashed one.
For such devices, that have another mechanism to help debugging, like
firmware, kmemdump is a viable solution.

kmemdump can create a core image, similar with /proc/vmcore, with only
the registered regions included. This can be loaded into crash tool/gdb and
analyzed.
To have this working, specific information from the kernel is registered,
and this is done at kmemdump init time, no need for the kmemdump user to
do anything.

The implementation is based on the initial Pstore/directly mapped zones
published as an RFC here:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250217101706.2104498-1-eugen.hristev@linaro.org/

The back-end implementation for qcom_smem is based on the minidump
patch series and driver written by Mukesh Ojha, thanks:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240131110837.14218-1-quic_mojha@quicinc.com/

I appreciate the feedback on this series, I know it is a longshot, and there
is a lot to improve, but I hope I am on the right track.

Thanks,
Eugen

PS. Here is how crash tool reports the dump:

     KERNEL: /home/eugen/linux-minidump/vmlinux  [TAINTED]
    DUMPFILE: /home/eugen/eee
        CPUS: 8 [OFFLINE: 7]
        DATE: Thu Jan  1 02:00:00 EET 1970
      UPTIME: 00:00:28
    NODENAME: qemuarm64
     RELEASE: 6.14.0-rc5-next-20250303-00014-g011eb2aaf7b6-dirty
     VERSION: #169 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 17 14:12:21 EEST 2025
     MACHINE: aarch64  (unknown Mhz)
      MEMORY: 0
       PANIC: ""

crash> log
[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0000000000 [0x410fd4b2]
[    0.000000] Linux version 6.14.0-rc5-next-20250303-00014-g011eb2aaf7b6-dirty (eugen@eugen-station) (aarch64-none-linux-gnu-gcc (Arm GNU Toolchain 13.3.Rel1 (Build arm-13.24)) 13.3.1 20240614, GNU ld (Arm GNU Toolchain 13.3.Rel1 (Build arm-13.24)) 2.42.0.20240614) #169 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 17 14:12:21 EEST 2025
[    0.000000] KASLR enabled
[...]

Eugen Hristev (14):
  Documentation: add kmemdump
  kmemdump: introduce kmemdump
  kmemdump: introduce qcom-md backend driver
  soc: qcom: smem: add minidump device
  Documentation: kmemdump: add section for coreimage ELF
  kmemdump: add coreimage ELF layer
  printk: add kmsg_kmemdump_register
  kmemdump: coreimage: add kmsg registration
  genirq: add irq_kmemdump_register
  kmemdump: coreimage: add irq registration
  panic: add panic_kmemdump_register
  kmemdump: coreimage: add panic registration
  sched: add sched_kmemdump_register
  kmemdump: coreimage: add sched registration

 Documentation/debug/index.rst      |  17 ++
 Documentation/debug/kmemdump.rst   |  83 +++++
 drivers/Kconfig                    |   2 +
 drivers/Makefile                   |   2 +
 drivers/debug/Kconfig              |  39 +++
 drivers/debug/Makefile             |   5 +
 drivers/debug/kmemdump.c           | 197 ++++++++++++
 drivers/debug/kmemdump_coreimage.c | 293 ++++++++++++++++++
 drivers/debug/qcom_md.c            | 467 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 drivers/soc/qcom/smem.c            |  10 +
 include/linux/irqnr.h              |   1 +
 include/linux/kmemdump.h           |  77 +++++
 include/linux/kmsg_dump.h          |   6 +
 include/linux/panic.h              |   1 +
 include/linux/sched.h              |   1 +
 kernel/irq/irqdesc.c               |   7 +
 kernel/panic.c                     |   8 +
 kernel/printk/printk.c             |  13 +
 kernel/sched/core.c                |   7 +
 19 files changed, 1236 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/debug/index.rst
 create mode 100644 Documentation/debug/kmemdump.rst
 create mode 100644 drivers/debug/Kconfig
 create mode 100644 drivers/debug/Makefile
 create mode 100644 drivers/debug/kmemdump.c
 create mode 100644 drivers/debug/kmemdump_coreimage.c
 create mode 100644 drivers/debug/qcom_md.c
 create mode 100644 include/linux/kmemdump.h