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.
hpa said: There is another very valid use for this: many operators would
rather a machine shuts down than being potentially compromised either
functionally or security-wise.
Signed-off-by: Prarit Bhargava <prarit@redhat.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@linux.intel.com>
Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <masami.hiramatsu.pt@hitachi.com>
Acked-by: Yasuaki Ishimatsu <isimatu.yasuaki@jp.fujitsu.com>
Cc: Fabian Frederick <fabf@skynet.be>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>