[PATCH] kdump: Fix crash_kexec - smp_send_stop race in panic

From: Michael Holzheu
Date: Wed Oct 26 2011 - 10:34:14 EST


Hello Andrew,

After the discussion with Eric and Vivek the following patch
seems to be a good solution to me. Could you accept this patch?

When two CPUs call panic at the same time there is a
possible race condition that can stop kdump. The first
CPU calls crash_kexec() and the second CPU calls
smp_send_stop() in panic() before crash_kexec() finished
on the first CPU. So the second CPU stops the first CPU
and therefore kdump fails:

1st CPU:
panic()->crash_kexec()->mutex_trylock(&kexec_mutex)-> do kdump

2nd CPU:
panic()->crash_kexec()->kexec_mutex already held by 1st CPU
->smp_send_stop()-> stop 1st CPU (stop kdump)

This patch fixes the problem by introducing a spinlock in
panic that allows only one CPU to process crash_kexec() and
the subsequent panic code.

Signed-off-by: Michael Holzheu <holzheu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/panic.c | 8 ++++++++
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

--- a/kernel/panic.c
+++ b/kernel/panic.c
@@ -59,6 +59,7 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(panic_blink);
*/
NORET_TYPE void panic(const char * fmt, ...)
{
+ static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(panic_lock);
static char buf[1024];
va_list args;
long i, i_next = 0;
@@ -82,6 +83,13 @@ NORET_TYPE void panic(const char * fmt,
#endif

/*
+ * Only one CPU is allowed to execute the panic code from here. For
+ * multiple parallel invocations of panic all other CPUs will wait on
+ * the panic_lock. They are stopped afterwards by smp_send_stop().
+ */
+ spin_lock(&panic_lock);
+
+ /*
* If we have crashed and we have a crash kernel loaded let it handle
* everything else.
* Do we want to call this before we try to display a message?


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