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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700
commit1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch)
tree0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/oops-tracing.txt
Linux-2.6.12-rc2v2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history, even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about 3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good infrastructure for it. Let it rip!
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+NOTE: ksymoops is useless on 2.6. Please use the Oops in its original format
+(from dmesg, etc). Ignore any references in this or other docs to "decoding
+the Oops" or "running it through ksymoops". If you post an Oops fron 2.6 that
+has been run through ksymoops, people will just tell you to repost it.
+
+Quick Summary
+-------------
+
+Find the Oops and send it to the maintainer of the kernel area that seems to be
+involved with the problem. Don't worry too much about getting the wrong person.
+If you are unsure send it to the person responsible for the code relevant to
+what you were doing. If it occurs repeatably try and describe how to recreate
+it. That's worth even more than the oops.
+
+If you are totally stumped as to whom to send the report, send it to
+linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org. Thanks for your help in making Linux as
+stable as humanly possible.
+
+Where is the Oops?
+----------------------
+
+Normally the Oops text is read from the kernel buffers by klogd and
+handed to syslogd which writes it to a syslog file, typically
+/var/log/messages (depends on /etc/syslog.conf). Sometimes klogd dies,
+in which case you can run dmesg > file to read the data from the kernel
+buffers and save it. Or you can cat /proc/kmsg > file, however you
+have to break in to stop the transfer, kmsg is a "never ending file".
+If the machine has crashed so badly that you cannot enter commands or
+the disk is not available then you have three options :-
+
+(1) Hand copy the text from the screen and type it in after the machine
+ has restarted. Messy but it is the only option if you have not
+ planned for a crash.
+
+(2) Boot with a serial console (see Documentation/serial-console.txt),
+ run a null modem to a second machine and capture the output there
+ using your favourite communication program. Minicom works well.
+
+(3) Patch the kernel with one of the crash dump patches. These save
+ data to a floppy disk or video rom or a swap partition. None of
+ these are standard kernel patches so you have to find and apply
+ them yourself. Search kernel archives for kmsgdump, lkcd and
+ oops+smram.
+
+
+Full Information
+----------------
+
+NOTE: the message from Linus below applies to 2.4 kernel. I have preserved it
+for historical reasons, and because some of the information in it still
+applies. Especially, please ignore any references to ksymoops.
+
+From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
+
+How to track down an Oops.. [originally a mail to linux-kernel]
+
+The main trick is having 5 years of experience with those pesky oops
+messages ;-)
+
+Actually, there are things you can do that make this easier. I have two
+separate approaches:
+
+ gdb /usr/src/linux/vmlinux
+ gdb> disassemble <offending_function>
+
+That's the easy way to find the problem, at least if the bug-report is
+well made (like this one was - run through ksymoops to get the
+information of which function and the offset in the function that it
+happened in).
+
+Oh, it helps if the report happens on a kernel that is compiled with the
+same compiler and similar setups.
+
+The other thing to do is disassemble the "Code:" part of the bug report:
+ksymoops will do this too with the correct tools, but if you don't have
+the tools you can just do a silly program:
+
+ char str[] = "\xXX\xXX\xXX...";
+ main(){}
+
+and compile it with gcc -g and then do "disassemble str" (where the "XX"
+stuff are the values reported by the Oops - you can just cut-and-paste
+and do a replace of spaces to "\x" - that's what I do, as I'm too lazy
+to write a program to automate this all).
+
+Finally, if you want to see where the code comes from, you can do
+
+ cd /usr/src/linux
+ make fs/buffer.s # or whatever file the bug happened in
+
+and then you get a better idea of what happens than with the gdb
+disassembly.
+
+Now, the trick is just then to combine all the data you have: the C
+sources (and general knowledge of what it _should_ do), the assembly
+listing and the code disassembly (and additionally the register dump you
+also get from the "oops" message - that can be useful to see _what_ the
+corrupted pointers were, and when you have the assembler listing you can
+also match the other registers to whatever C expressions they were used
+for).
+
+Essentially, you just look at what doesn't match (in this case it was the
+"Code" disassembly that didn't match with what the compiler generated).
+Then you need to find out _why_ they don't match. Often it's simple - you
+see that the code uses a NULL pointer and then you look at the code and
+wonder how the NULL pointer got there, and if it's a valid thing to do
+you just check against it..
+
+Now, if somebody gets the idea that this is time-consuming and requires
+some small amount of concentration, you're right. Which is why I will
+mostly just ignore any panic reports that don't have the symbol table
+info etc looked up: it simply gets too hard to look it up (I have some
+programs to search for specific patterns in the kernel code segment, and
+sometimes I have been able to look up those kinds of panics too, but
+that really requires pretty good knowledge of the kernel just to be able
+to pick out the right sequences etc..)
+
+_Sometimes_ it happens that I just see the disassembled code sequence
+from the panic, and I know immediately where it's coming from. That's when
+I get worried that I've been doing this for too long ;-)
+
+ Linus
+
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Notes on Oops tracing with klogd:
+
+In order to help Linus and the other kernel developers there has been
+substantial support incorporated into klogd for processing protection
+faults. In order to have full support for address resolution at least
+version 1.3-pl3 of the sysklogd package should be used.
+
+When a protection fault occurs the klogd daemon automatically
+translates important addresses in the kernel log messages to their
+symbolic equivalents. This translated kernel message is then
+forwarded through whatever reporting mechanism klogd is using. The
+protection fault message can be simply cut out of the message files
+and forwarded to the kernel developers.
+
+Two types of address resolution are performed by klogd. The first is
+static translation and the second is dynamic translation. Static
+translation uses the System.map file in much the same manner that
+ksymoops does. In order to do static translation the klogd daemon
+must be able to find a system map file at daemon initialization time.
+See the klogd man page for information on how klogd searches for map
+files.
+
+Dynamic address translation is important when kernel loadable modules
+are being used. Since memory for kernel modules is allocated from the
+kernel's dynamic memory pools there are no fixed locations for either
+the start of the module or for functions and symbols in the module.
+
+The kernel supports system calls which allow a program to determine
+which modules are loaded and their location in memory. Using these
+system calls the klogd daemon builds a symbol table which can be used
+to debug a protection fault which occurs in a loadable kernel module.
+
+At the very minimum klogd will provide the name of the module which
+generated the protection fault. There may be additional symbolic
+information available if the developer of the loadable module chose to
+export symbol information from the module.
+
+Since the kernel module environment can be dynamic there must be a
+mechanism for notifying the klogd daemon when a change in module
+environment occurs. There are command line options available which
+allow klogd to signal the currently executing daemon that symbol
+information should be refreshed. See the klogd manual page for more
+information.
+
+A patch is included with the sysklogd distribution which modifies the
+modules-2.0.0 package to automatically signal klogd whenever a module
+is loaded or unloaded. Applying this patch provides essentially
+seamless support for debugging protection faults which occur with
+kernel loadable modules.
+
+The following is an example of a protection fault in a loadable module
+processed by klogd:
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address f15e97cc
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: current->tss.cr3 = 0062d000, %cr3 = 0062d000
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: *pde = 00000000
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: Oops: 0002
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: CPU: 0
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: EIP: 0010:[oops:_oops+16/3868]
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: EFLAGS: 00010212
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: eax: 315e97cc ebx: 003a6f80 ecx: 001be77b edx: 00237c0c
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: esi: 00000000 edi: bffffdb3 ebp: 00589f90 esp: 00589f8c
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: ds: 0018 es: 0018 fs: 002b gs: 002b ss: 0018
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: Process oops_test (pid: 3374, process nr: 21, stackpage=00589000)
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: Stack: 315e97cc 00589f98 0100b0b4 bffffed4 0012e38e 00240c64 003a6f80 00000001
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: 00000000 00237810 bfffff00 0010a7fa 00000003 00000001 00000000 bfffff00
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: bffffdb3 bffffed4 ffffffda 0000002b 0007002b 0000002b 0000002b 00000036
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: Call Trace: [oops:_oops_ioctl+48/80] [_sys_ioctl+254/272] [_system_call+82/128]
+Aug 29 09:51:01 blizard kernel: Code: c7 00 05 00 00 00 eb 08 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 89 ec 5d c3
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Dr. G.W. Wettstein Oncology Research Div. Computing Facility
+Roger Maris Cancer Center INTERNET: greg@wind.rmcc.com
+820 4th St. N.
+Fargo, ND 58122
+Phone: 701-234-7556
+
+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Tainted kernels:
+
+Some oops reports contain the string 'Tainted: ' after the program
+counter, this indicates that the kernel has been tainted by some
+mechanism. The string is followed by a series of position sensitive
+characters, each representing a particular tainted value.
+
+ 1: 'G' if all modules loaded have a GPL or compatible license, 'P' if
+ any proprietary module has been loaded. Modules without a
+ MODULE_LICENSE or with a MODULE_LICENSE that is not recognised by
+ insmod as GPL compatible are assumed to be proprietary.
+
+ 2: 'F' if any module was force loaded by insmod -f, ' ' if all
+ modules were loaded normally.
+
+ 3: 'S' if the oops occurred on an SMP kernel running on hardware that
+ hasn't been certified as safe to run multiprocessor.
+ Currently this occurs only on various Athlons that are not
+ SMP capable.
+
+The primary reason for the 'Tainted: ' string is to tell kernel
+debuggers if this is a clean kernel or if anything unusual has
+occurred. Tainting is permanent, even if an offending module is
+unloading the tainted value remains to indicate that the kernel is not
+trustworthy.