Hello Jason, On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 6:43 AM, Jason Baron <jbaron@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 10:42:16AM +1200, Michael Kerrisk wrote: >> Jason, >> >> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 6:00 AM, Jason Baron <jbaron@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> > Hi, >> > >> > The motivation for this change was that I was looking at a way for a qemu-kvm >> > process, to exclude the guest memory from its core dump, which can be quite >> > large. There are already a number of filter flags in >> > /proc/<pid>/coredump_filter, however, these allow one to specify 'types' of >> > kernel memory, not specific address ranges (which is needed in this case). >> > >> > Since there are no more vma flags available, the first patch eliminates the >> > need for the 'VM_ALWAYSDUMP' flag. The flag is used internally by the kernel to >> > mark vdso and vsyscall pages. However, it is simple enough to check if a vma >> > covers a vdso or vsyscall page without the need for this flag. >> > >> > The second patch then replaces the 'VM_ALWAYSDUMP' flag with a new >> > 'VM_DONTDUMP' flag, which can be set by userspace using new madvise flags: >> > 'MADV_DONTDUMP', and unset via 'MADV_DUMP'. The core dump filters continue to >> > work the same as before unless 'MADV_DONTDUMP' is set on the region. >> > >> > The qemu code which implements this features is at: >> > http://people.redhat.com/~jbaron/qemu-dump/qemu-dump.patch >> > >> > In my testing the qemu core dump shrunk from 383MB -> 13MB with this patch. >> > >> > I also believe that the 'MADV_DONTDUMP' flag might be useful for security >> > sensitive apps, which might want to select which areas are dumped. >> >> Since we have >> MADV_DODUMP >> MADV_DONTDUMP >> MADV_NODUMP >> heading for userspace in 3.4, would you be willing to write patches >> for the madvise(2) man page to describe these flags? >> >> See http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/download.html for details on >> accessing man-pages Git. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Michael >> >> PS Please also CC linux-api@ when making API/ABI changes. >> > > Ok, here's a stab at manpage patch, let me know if I should send it as a > separate patch. Thanks. > > -Jason > > > diff --git a/man2/madvise.2 b/man2/madvise.2 > index 36f988a..472c23a 100644 > --- a/man2/madvise.2 > +++ b/man2/madvise.2 > @@ -247,6 +247,22 @@ Ensures that memory in the address range specified by > and > .IR length > will not be collapsed into huge pages. > +.TP > +.BR MADV_DONTDUMP " (since Linux 3.4)" > +Explicitly exclude from a core dump those pages in the range specified by > +.I addr > +and > +.IR length . > +Applications may have large areas of memory which are known not to be useful in > +diagnosing a core dump. This specification takes precedence over the bit mask that > +is set via the > +.I /proc/PID/coredump_filter > +file (see > +.BR core (5)). > +.TP > +.BR MADV_DODUMP " (since Linux 3.4)" > +Undo the effect of an earlier > +.BR MADV_DONTDUMP. > .SH "RETURN VALUE" > On success > .BR madvise () > @@ -356,4 +372,5 @@ from the system call, as it should). > .BR mmap (2), > .BR mprotect (2), > .BR msync (2), > -.BR munmap (2) > +.BR munmap (2), > +.BR core (5) Thanks! I tweaked this patch a little and applied the version below. Cheers, Michael --- a/man2/madvise.2 +++ b/man2/madvise.2 @@ -247,6 +247,24 @@ Ensures that memory in the address range specified by and .IR length will not be collapsed into huge pages. +.TP +.BR MADV_DONTDUMP " (since Linux 3.4)" +Exclude from a core dump those pages in the range specified by +.I addr +and +.IR length . +This is useful in applications that have large areas of memory +that are known not to be useful in a core dump. +The effect of +.BR MADV_DONTDUMP +takes precedence over the bit mask that is set via the +.I /proc/PID/coredump_filter +file (see +.BR core (5)). +.TP +.BR MADV_DODUMP " (since Linux 3.4)" +Undo the effect of an earlier +.BR MADV_DONTDUMP . .SH "RETURN VALUE" On success .BR madvise () @@ -356,4 +374,5 @@ from the system call, as it should). .BR mmap (2), .BR mprotect (2), .BR msync (2), -.BR munmap (2) +.BR munmap (2), +.BR core (5) -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Author of "The Linux Programming Interface"; http://man7.org/tlpi/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-api" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
