On Tue 2022-05-03 16:12:09, Guilherme G. Piccoli wrote: > On 03/05/2022 15:03, Evan Green wrote: > > [...] > > gsmi_shutdown_reason() is a common function called in other scenarios > > as well, like reboot and thermal trip, where it may still make sense > > to wait to acquire a spinlock. Maybe we should add a parameter to > > gsmi_shutdown_reason() so that you can get your change on panic, but > > we don't convert other callbacks into try-fail scenarios causing us to > > miss logs. > > > > Hi Evan, thanks for your feedback, much appreciated! > What I've done in other cases like this was to have a helper checking > the spinlock in the panic notifier - if we can acquire that, go ahead > but if not, bail out. For a proper example of an implementation, check > patch 13 of the series: > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220427224924.592546-14-gpiccoli@xxxxxxxxxx/ . > > Do you agree with that, or prefer really a parameter in > gsmi_shutdown_reason() ? I'll follow your choice =) I see two more alternative solutions: 1st variant is a trick already used in console write() callbacks. They do trylock() when oops_in_progress is set. They remember the result to prevent double unlock when printing Oops messages and the system will try to continue working. For example: pl011_console_write(struct console *co, const char *s, unsigned int count) { [...] int locked = 1; [...] if (uap->port.sysrq) locked = 0; else if (oops_in_progress) locked = spin_trylock(&uap->port.lock); else spin_lock(&uap->port.lock); [...] if (locked) spin_unlock(&uap->port.lock); } 2nd variant is to check panic_cpu variable. It is used in printk.c. We might move the function to panic.h: static bool panic_in_progress(void) { return unlikely(atomic_read(&panic_cpu) != PANIC_CPU_INVALID); } and then do: if (panic_in_progress()) { ... > > Though thinking more about it, is this really a Good Change (TM)? The > > spinlock itself already disables interrupts, meaning the only case > > where this change makes a difference is if the panic happens from > > within the function that grabbed the spinlock (in which case the > > callback is also likely to panic), or in an NMI that panics within > > that window. As already mentioned in the other reply, panic() sometimes stops the other CPUs using NMI, for example, see kdump_nmi_shootdown_cpus(). Another situation is when the CPU using the lock ends in some infinite loop because something went wrong. The system is in an unpredictable state during panic(). I am not sure if this is possible with the code under gsmi_dev.lock but such things really happen during panic() in other subsystems. Using trylock in the panic() code path is a good practice. Best Regards, Petr