linux/Documentation/sysctl
Prarit Bhargava 9e3961a097 kernel: add panic_on_warn
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>
2014-12-10 17:41:10 -08:00
..
00-INDEX sysctl: remove obsolete comments 2011-01-13 08:03:18 -08:00
abi.txt
fs.txt Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2012-08-01 10:26:23 -07:00
kernel.txt kernel: add panic_on_warn 2014-12-10 17:41:10 -08:00
net.txt tipc: add name distributor resiliency queue 2014-09-01 17:51:48 -07:00
README
sunrpc.txt
vm.txt mm, pcp: allow restoring percpu_pagelist_fraction default 2014-06-23 16:47:43 -07:00

Documentation for /proc/sys/		kernel version 2.2.10
	(c) 1998, 1999,  Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>

'Why', I hear you ask, 'would anyone even _want_ documentation
for them sysctl files? If anybody really needs it, it's all in
the source...'

Well, this documentation is written because some people either
don't know they need to tweak something, or because they don't
have the time or knowledge to read the source code.

Furthermore, the programmers who built sysctl have built it to
be actually used, not just for the fun of programming it :-)

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

Legal blurb:

As usual, there are two main things to consider:
1. you get what you pay for
2. it's free

The consequences are that I won't guarantee the correctness of
this document, and if you come to me complaining about how you
screwed up your system because of wrong documentation, I won't
feel sorry for you. I might even laugh at you...

But of course, if you _do_ manage to screw up your system using
only the sysctl options used in this file, I'd like to hear of
it. Not only to have a great laugh, but also to make sure that
you're the last RTFMing person to screw up.

In short, e-mail your suggestions, corrections and / or horror
stories to: <riel@nl.linux.org>

Rik van Riel.

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

Introduction:

Sysctl is a means of configuring certain aspects of the kernel
at run-time, and the /proc/sys/ directory is there so that you
don't even need special tools to do it!
In fact, there are only four things needed to use these config
facilities:
- a running Linux system
- root access
- common sense (this is especially hard to come by these days)
- knowledge of what all those values mean

As a quick 'ls /proc/sys' will show, the directory consists of
several (arch-dependent?) subdirs. Each subdir is mainly about
one part of the kernel, so you can do configuration on a piece
by piece basis, or just some 'thematic frobbing'.

The subdirs are about:
abi/		execution domains & personalities
debug/		<empty>
dev/		device specific information (eg dev/cdrom/info)
fs/		specific filesystems
		filehandle, inode, dentry and quota tuning
		binfmt_misc <Documentation/binfmt_misc.txt>
kernel/		global kernel info / tuning
		miscellaneous stuff
net/		networking stuff, for documentation look in:
		<Documentation/networking/>
proc/		<empty>
sunrpc/		SUN Remote Procedure Call (NFS)
vm/		memory management tuning
		buffer and cache management

These are the subdirs I have on my system. There might be more
or other subdirs in another setup. If you see another dir, I'd
really like to hear about it :-)