Re: [PATCH v5 3/9] x86/head: Move early exception panic code into early_fixup_exception

[Borislav Petkov]

On Sat, Apr 02, 2016 at 01:13:37PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> Given that I this isn't really a regression with my patches (it
> probably never worked much better on 32-bit and the regs never would
> have shown at all on 64-bit),

You're right. That thing calls printk *and* early_printk, WTF:

#ifdef CONFIG_EARLY_PRINTK

	call early_printk
	...

	call dump_stack

	...

	call __print_symbol

those last two call printk. Great.

> I propose a different approach: make
> printk work earlier.  Something like:
> 
> if (early) {
>     early_printk(args);
> }
> 
> or early_vprintk or whatever.
> 
> If the cost of a branch mattered, this could be alternative-patched
> out later on, but that seems silly.  I also bet that a more sensible
> fallback could be created in which printk would try to use an early
> console if there's no real console.

So how about this:

printk() does

	vprintk_func = this_cpu_read(printk_func);

and that's

DEFINE_PER_CPU(printk_func_t, printk_func) = vprintk_default

I guess we can make that function be early_printk-something and once
printk is initialized, we overwrite it with vprintk_default.

Elegant and no need for if branches and alternatives.

Hmmm.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

ECO tip #101: Trim your mails when you reply.