----- Original Message -----
>
> provides some requested changes:
> - remove the automatic exclusion of page structures for memories over 1TB; it
> will only be done by explicit request (-e)
> - remove the -N option; no need to explicitly include unused vmemmap pages
> as they will be included by default
> - add DUMP_DH_EXCLUDED_VMEMMAP to the dump header; to warn crash users that
> these page structures are excluded
> - fix the making of the filename for pfn file (in init_save_control())
> but still is only tested on a disk dump of an x86_64 system.
>
> Exclude kernel pages that contain nothing but page structures for pages
> that are not being included in the dump.
> These can amount to 3.67 million pages per terabyte of system memory!
>
> The kernel's page table, starting at virtual address 0xffffea0000000000, is
> searched to find the actual pages containing the vmemmap page structures.
>
> Bitmap1 is a map of dumpable (i.e existing) pages. Bitmap2 is a map
> of pages not to be excluded.
> To speed the search of bitmaps only whole 64-bit words of 1's in
> bitmap1 and 0's in bitmap2 are tested to see if they are vmemmap pages.
>
> The list of vmemmap pfn's to be excluded is written to a small file in order
> to conserve crash kernel memory.
>
> In practice, this whole procedure only takes about 10 seconds on a
> 16TB machine.
>
> Signed-off-by: Cliff Wickman <cpw at sgi.com>
... [ cut ] ...
> +#define OPT_EXCLUDEVM 'e'
> #define OPT_ELF_DUMPFILE 'E'
> #define OPT_FLATTEN 'F'
> #define OPT_FORCE 'f'
> Index: makedumpfile-1.5.5/print_info.c
> ===================================================================
> --- makedumpfile-1.5.5.orig/print_info.c
> +++ makedumpfile-1.5.5/print_info.c
> @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ print_usage(void)
> MSG("\n");
> MSG("Usage:\n");
> MSG(" Creating DUMPFILE:\n");
> - MSG(" # makedumpfile [-c|-l|-E] [-d DL] [-j] [-J] [-x VMLINUX|-i VMCOREINFO] VMCORE\n");
> + MSG(" # makedumpfile [-c|-l|-E|-j|-J|-e|-N] [-d DL] [-x VMLINUX|-i VMCOREINFO] VMCORE\n");
> MSG(" DUMPFILE\n");
> MSG("\n");
> MSG(" Creating DUMPFILE with filtered kernel data specified through filter config\n");
> @@ -101,6 +101,10 @@ print_usage(void)
> MSG(" [-J]:\n");
> MSG(" Use raw (O_DIRECT) i/o on bitmap file to avoid expanding kernel pagecache.\n");
> MSG("\n");
> + MSG(" [-e]:\n");
> + MSG(" Exclude page structures (vmemmap) for unused pages.\n");
> + MSG(" (the default is to capture them all, which amounts to 3.67M pages per terabyte)\n");
> + MSG("\n");
> MSG(" [-d DL]:\n");
> MSG(" Specify the type of unnecessary page for analysis.\n");
> MSG(" Pages of the specified type are not copied to DUMPFILE. The page
> type\n");
Perhaps there should be a warning above concerning the potential for crash analysis
problems? The description above makes it sound like -e is similar in nature (and
therefore as harmless) as the -d <level> option.
It could be argued that there's no such warning for eppic/erasures, but with eppic
it's far less likely to result in crash analysis failures. With -e, the user is
virtually guaranteed to have issues.
I realize that this is beating a dead horse, but again, this is an option
that should very rarely be used -- and if applied, the user/administrator should
be well aware of the ramifications.
Dave
