[PATCH v9] kernel, add panic_on_warn

From: Prarit Bhargava
Date: Tue Nov 11 2014 - 07:35:54 EST


There have been several times where I have had to rebuild a kernel to
cause a panic when hitting a WARN() in the code in order to get a crash
dump from a system. Sometimes this is easy to do, other times (such as
in the case of a remote admin) it is not trivial to send new images to the
user.

A much easier method would be a switch to change the WARN() over to a
panic. This makes debugging easier in that I can now test the actual
image the WARN() was seen on and I do not have to engage in remote
debugging.

This patch adds a panic_on_warn kernel parameter and
/proc/sys/kernel/panic_on_warn calls panic() in the warn_slowpath_common()
path. The function will still print out the location of the warning.

An example of the panic_on_warn output:

The first line below is from the WARN_ON() to output the WARN_ON()'s location.
After that the panic() output is displayed.

WARNING: CPU: 30 PID: 11698 at /home/prarit/dummy_module/dummy-module.c:25 init_dummy+0x1f/0x30 [dummy_module]()
Kernel panic - not syncing: panic_on_warn set ...

CPU: 30 PID: 11698 Comm: insmod Tainted: G W OE 3.17.0+ #57
Hardware name: Intel Corporation S2600CP/S2600CP, BIOS RMLSDP.86I.00.29.D696.1311111329 11/11/2013
0000000000000000 000000008e3f87df ffff88080f093c38 ffffffff81665190
0000000000000000 ffffffff818aea3d ffff88080f093cb8 ffffffff8165e2ec
ffffffff00000008 ffff88080f093cc8 ffff88080f093c68 000000008e3f87df
Call Trace:
[<ffffffff81665190>] dump_stack+0x46/0x58
[<ffffffff8165e2ec>] panic+0xd0/0x204
[<ffffffffa038e05f>] ? init_dummy+0x1f/0x30 [dummy_module]
[<ffffffff81076b90>] warn_slowpath_common+0xd0/0xd0
[<ffffffffa038e040>] ? dummy_greetings+0x40/0x40 [dummy_module]
[<ffffffff81076c8a>] warn_slowpath_null+0x1a/0x20
[<ffffffffa038e05f>] init_dummy+0x1f/0x30 [dummy_module]
[<ffffffff81002144>] do_one_initcall+0xd4/0x210
[<ffffffff811b52c2>] ? __vunmap+0xc2/0x110
[<ffffffff810f8889>] load_module+0x16a9/0x1b30
[<ffffffff810f3d30>] ? store_uevent+0x70/0x70
[<ffffffff810f49b9>] ? copy_module_from_fd.isra.44+0x129/0x180
[<ffffffff810f8ec6>] SyS_finit_module+0xa6/0xd0
[<ffffffff8166cf29>] system_call_fastpath+0x12/0x17

Successfully tested by me.

Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@xxxxxxx>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Rusty Russell <rusty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Fabian Frederick <fabf@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: vgoyal@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: isimatu.yasuaki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: jbaron@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-doc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: kexec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-api@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Prarit Bhargava <prarit@xxxxxxxxxx>

[v2]: add /proc/sys/kernel/panic_on_warn, additional documentation, modify
!slowpath cases
[v3]: use proc_dointvec_minmax() in sysctl handler
[v4]: remove !slowpath cases, and add __read_mostly
[v5]: change to panic_on_warn, re-alphabetize Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
[v6]: disable on kdump kernel to avoid bogus panicks.
[v7]: swithch to core param, and remove change from v6
[v8]: remove include file
[v9]: restore cut line, and fix panic_on_warn comment
---
Documentation/kdump/kdump.txt | 7 ++++++
Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt | 3 +++
Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt | 40 +++++++++++++++++++++++------------
include/linux/kernel.h | 1 +
include/uapi/linux/sysctl.h | 1 +
kernel/panic.c | 13 ++++++++++++
kernel/sysctl.c | 9 ++++++++
kernel/sysctl_binary.c | 1 +
8 files changed, 61 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/kdump/kdump.txt b/Documentation/kdump/kdump.txt
index 6c0b9f2..bc4bd5a 100644
--- a/Documentation/kdump/kdump.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kdump/kdump.txt
@@ -471,6 +471,13 @@ format. Crash is available on Dave Anderson's site at the following URL:

http://people.redhat.com/~anderson/

+Trigger Kdump on WARN()
+=======================
+
+The kernel parameter, panic_on_warn, calls panic() in all WARN() paths. This
+will cause a kdump to occur at the panic() call. In cases where a user wants
+to specify this during runtime, /proc/sys/kernel/panic_on_warn can be set to 1
+to achieve the same behaviour.

Contact
=======
diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
index 4c81a86..ea5d57c 100644
--- a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -2509,6 +2509,9 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted.
timeout < 0: reboot immediately
Format: <timeout>

+ panic_on_warn panic() instead of WARN(). Useful to cause kdump
+ on a WARN().
+
crash_kexec_post_notifiers
Run kdump after running panic-notifiers and dumping
kmsg. This only for the users who doubt kdump always
diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
index 57baff5..b5d0c85 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/kernel.txt
@@ -54,8 +54,9 @@ show up in /proc/sys/kernel:
- overflowuid
- panic
- panic_on_oops
-- panic_on_unrecovered_nmi
- panic_on_stackoverflow
+- panic_on_unrecovered_nmi
+- panic_on_warn
- pid_max
- powersave-nap [ PPC only ]
- printk
@@ -527,19 +528,6 @@ the recommended setting is 60.

==============================================================

-panic_on_unrecovered_nmi:
-
-The default Linux behaviour on an NMI of either memory or unknown is
-to continue operation. For many environments such as scientific
-computing it is preferable that the box is taken out and the error
-dealt with than an uncorrected parity/ECC error get propagated.
-
-A small number of systems do generate NMI's for bizarre random reasons
-such as power management so the default is off. That sysctl works like
-the existing panic controls already in that directory.
-
-==============================================================
-
panic_on_oops:

Controls the kernel's behaviour when an oops or BUG is encountered.
@@ -563,6 +551,30 @@ This file shows up if CONFIG_DEBUG_STACKOVERFLOW is enabled.

==============================================================

+panic_on_unrecovered_nmi:
+
+The default Linux behaviour on an NMI of either memory or unknown is
+to continue operation. For many environments such as scientific
+computing it is preferable that the box is taken out and the error
+dealt with than an uncorrected parity/ECC error get propagated.
+
+A small number of systems do generate NMI's for bizarre random reasons
+such as power management so the default is off. That sysctl works like
+the existing panic controls already in that directory.
+
+==============================================================
+
+panic_on_warn:
+
+Calls panic() in the WARN() path when set to 1. This is useful to avoid
+a kernel rebuild when attempting to kdump at the location of a WARN().
+
+0: only WARN(), default behaviour.
+
+1: call panic() after printing out WARN() location.
+
+==============================================================
+
perf_cpu_time_max_percent:

Hints to the kernel how much CPU time it should be allowed to
diff --git a/include/linux/kernel.h b/include/linux/kernel.h
index 3d770f55..d60d31d 100644
--- a/include/linux/kernel.h
+++ b/include/linux/kernel.h
@@ -422,6 +422,7 @@ extern int panic_timeout;
extern int panic_on_oops;
extern int panic_on_unrecovered_nmi;
extern int panic_on_io_nmi;
+extern int panic_on_warn;
extern int sysctl_panic_on_stackoverflow;
/*
* Only to be used by arch init code. If the user over-wrote the default
diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/sysctl.h b/include/uapi/linux/sysctl.h
index 43aaba1..0956373 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/sysctl.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/sysctl.h
@@ -153,6 +153,7 @@ enum
KERN_MAX_LOCK_DEPTH=74, /* int: rtmutex's maximum lock depth */
KERN_NMI_WATCHDOG=75, /* int: enable/disable nmi watchdog */
KERN_PANIC_ON_NMI=76, /* int: whether we will panic on an unrecovered */
+ KERN_PANIC_ON_WARN=77, /* int: call panic() in WARN() functions */
};


diff --git a/kernel/panic.c b/kernel/panic.c
index d09dc5c..f9412c0 100644
--- a/kernel/panic.c
+++ b/kernel/panic.c
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ static int pause_on_oops;
static int pause_on_oops_flag;
static DEFINE_SPINLOCK(pause_on_oops_lock);
static bool crash_kexec_post_notifiers;
+int panic_on_warn __read_mostly;

int panic_timeout = CONFIG_PANIC_TIMEOUT;
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(panic_timeout);
@@ -427,6 +428,17 @@ static void warn_slowpath_common(const char *file, int line, void *caller,
if (args)
vprintk(args->fmt, args->args);

+ if (panic_on_warn) {
+ /*
+ * This thread may hit another WARN() in the panic path.
+ * Resetting this prevents additional WARN() from panicking the
+ * system on this thread. Other threads are blocked by the
+ * panic_mutex in panic().
+ */
+ panic_on_warn = 0;
+ panic("panic_on_warn set ...\n");
+ }
+
print_modules();
dump_stack();
print_oops_end_marker();
@@ -484,6 +496,7 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(__stack_chk_fail);

core_param(panic, panic_timeout, int, 0644);
core_param(pause_on_oops, pause_on_oops, int, 0644);
+core_param(panic_on_warn, panic_on_warn, int, 0644);

static int __init setup_crash_kexec_post_notifiers(char *s)
{
diff --git a/kernel/sysctl.c b/kernel/sysctl.c
index 15f2511..7c54ff7 100644
--- a/kernel/sysctl.c
+++ b/kernel/sysctl.c
@@ -1104,6 +1104,15 @@ static struct ctl_table kern_table[] = {
.proc_handler = proc_dointvec,
},
#endif
+ {
+ .procname = "panic_on_warn",
+ .data = &panic_on_warn,
+ .maxlen = sizeof(int),
+ .mode = 0644,
+ .proc_handler = proc_dointvec_minmax,
+ .extra1 = &zero,
+ .extra2 = &one,
+ },
{ }
};

diff --git a/kernel/sysctl_binary.c b/kernel/sysctl_binary.c
index 9a4f750..7e7746a 100644
--- a/kernel/sysctl_binary.c
+++ b/kernel/sysctl_binary.c
@@ -137,6 +137,7 @@ static const struct bin_table bin_kern_table[] = {
{ CTL_INT, KERN_COMPAT_LOG, "compat-log" },
{ CTL_INT, KERN_MAX_LOCK_DEPTH, "max_lock_depth" },
{ CTL_INT, KERN_PANIC_ON_NMI, "panic_on_unrecovered_nmi" },
+ { CTL_INT, KERN_PANIC_ON_WARN, "panic_on_warn" },
{}
};

--
1.7.9.3

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