Re: [PATCH] kernel/watchdog: flush all printk nmi buffers when hardlockup detected

From: Steven Rostedt
Date: Tue Feb 11 2020 - 21:50:04 EST


On Wed, 12 Feb 2020 10:15:51 +0900
Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky.work@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On (20/02/10 12:48), Konstantin Khlebnikov wrote:
> >
> > In NMI context printk() could save messages into per-cpu buffers and
> > schedule flush by irq_work when IRQ are unblocked. This means message
> > about hardlockup appears in kernel log only when/if lockup is gone.
> >
> > Comment in irq_work_queue_on() states that remote IPI aren't NMI safe
> > thus printk() cannot schedule flush work to another cpu.
> >
> > This patch adds simple atomic counter of detected hardlockups and
> > flushes all per-cpu printk buffers in context softlockup watchdog
> > at any other cpu when it sees changes of this counter.
>
> Petr, could you remind me, why do we do PRINTK_NMI_DIRECT_CONTEXT_MASK
> only from ftrace?

Could it be because its from ftrace_dump() which can spit out millions
of lines from NMI context?

-- Steve