Re: [PATCH tip/core/urgent] fix several lockdep splats, allowmultiple splats

From: Mathieu Desnoyers
Date: Fri Apr 30 2010 - 13:04:01 EST


* Ingo Molnar (mingo@xxxxxxx) wrote:
>
> * Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Hello!
> >
> > This patchset contains four RCU lockdep splat fixes, courtesy of David
> > Howells, Peter Zijlstra, and Trond Myklebust, [...]
>
> I've applied #1 and #2 - but shouldnt #4 and #5 go via the NFS tree?
>
> > [...] as well as an enhancement by Lai Jiangshan that permits collecting
> > more than one RCU lockdep splat per boot.
>
> Hm, this #3 patch i disagree with quite fundamentally: one of the big virtues
> of lockdep is that it complains only once and then shuts up and lets the
> system work. It allows distro debug kernels to have lockdep enabled, etc.
>
> One bugreport per bootup per user is the most we can expect really. Not
> disabling it risks getting a stream of repeat messages, annoyed testers and
> gives us _less_ bugreports in the end.
>
> Also, often the _first_ warning is the most reliable one - sometimes there's
> interactions, and the first bug causing a second warning as well, etc. So
> reporting just the highest-quality (i.e. first) issue we detect is the best
> approach.

I recommend creating a kernel command line parameter that would tweak
the number of messages printed by lockdep. The default would indeed by 1
message, but people in a debugging marathon can specify a larger value
so they won't have to reboot between each individual lockdep error.

Thanks,

Mathieu

>
> Thanks,
>
> Ingo

--
Mathieu Desnoyers
Operating System Efficiency R&D Consultant
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com
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