Changelog v3 -> v4 - Rebase to 3.7-rc3 - Add ctime to an argument of efi_pstore_erase to build successfully in case where CONFIG_PTORE=n is specified. (Patch 4/7) - Add count to an argument of efi_pstore_erase and efi_pstore_write to build successfully in case where CONFIG_PTORE=n is specified (Patch 5/7) - Fix a white space damage (Patch 6/7) - Modify a logic checking a 3-variable format of a variable name (Patch 7/7) v2 -> v3 - Create patches 6/7 and 7/7 to work with an existing format of variable name v1 -> v2 - Separate into 5 patches in accordance with Mike's comment - Erase an extra line of comment in patch 1/5 [Issue] Currently, efi_pstore driver simply overwrites existing panic messages in NVRAM. So, in the following scenario, we will lose 1st panic messages. 1. kernel panics. 2. efi_pstore is kicked and writes panic messages to NVRAM. 3. system reboots. 4. kernel panics again before a user checks the 1st panic messages in NVRAM. [Solution] Solutions of this problem has been discussed among Tony, Matthew, Don, Mike and me. http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=134273270704586&w=2 And there are two possible solutions right now. - First one is introducing some policy overwriting existing logs. - Second one is simply holding multiple log without overwriting any entries. We haven't decided the overwriting policy which is reasonable to all users yet. But I believe we agree that just holding multiple logs is a reasonable way. We may need further discussions to find the possibility of introducing overwriting policy, especially getting critical messages in multiple oops case. But I would like to begin with a simple and reasonable way to everyone. So, this patch takes an approach just holding multiple logs. [Patch Description] Seiji Aguchi (7): efi_pstore: Check remaining space with QueryVariableInfo() before writing data efi_pstore: Add a logic erasing entries to an erase callback efi_pstore: Remove a logic erasing entries from a write callback to hold multiple logs efi_pstore: Add ctime to argument of erase callback efi_pstore: Add a sequence counter to a variable name efi_pstore: Add a format check for an existing variable name at reading time Add a format check for an existing variable name at erasing time drivers/acpi/apei/erst.c | 16 ++-- drivers/firmware/efivars.c | 163 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------- fs/pstore/inode.c | 7 ++- fs/pstore/internal.h | 2 +- fs/pstore/platform.c | 11 ++-- fs/pstore/ram.c | 9 +-- include/linux/efi.h | 1 + include/linux/pstore.h | 6 +- 8 files changed, 143 insertions(+), 72 deletions(-) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-acpi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html