• Guilherme G. Piccoli's avatar
    kernel/hung_task.c: introduce sysctl to print all traces when a hung task is detected · 0ec9dc9b
    Guilherme G. Piccoli authored
    Commit 401c636a ("kernel/hung_task.c: show all hung tasks before
    panic") introduced a change in that we started to show all CPUs
    backtraces when a hung task is detected _and_ the sysctl/kernel
    parameter "hung_task_panic" is set.  The idea is good, because usually
    when observing deadlocks (that may lead to hung tasks), the culprit is
    another task holding a lock and not necessarily the task detected as
    hung.
    
    The problem with this approach is that dumping backtraces is a slightly
    expensive task, specially printing that on console (and specially in
    many CPU machines, as servers commonly found nowadays).  So, users that
    plan to collect a kdump to investigate the hung tasks and narrow down
    the deadlock definitely don't need the CPUs backtrace on dmesg/console,
    which will delay the panic and pollute the log (crash tool would easily
    grab all CPUs traces with 'bt -a' command).
    
    Also, there's the reciprocal scenario: some users may be interested in
    seeing the CPUs backtraces but not have the system panic when a hung
    task is detected.  The current approach hence is almost as embedding a
    policy in the kernel, by forcing the CPUs backtraces' dump (only) on
    hung_task_panic.
    
    This patch decouples the panic event on hung task from the CPUs
    backtraces dump, by creating (and documenting) a new sysctl called
    "hung_task_all_cpu_backtrace", analog to the approach taken on soft/hard
    lockups, that have both a panic and an "all_cpu_backtrace" sysctl to
    allow individual control.  The new mechanism for dumping the CPUs
    backtraces on hung task detection respects "hung_task_warnings" by not
    dumping the traces in case there's no warnings left.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarGuilherme G. Piccoli <gpiccoli@canonical.com>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarKees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
    Cc: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@I-love.SAKURA.ne.jp>
    Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200327223646.20779-1-gpiccoli@canonical.comSigned-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
    0ec9dc9b
kernel.rst 45.5 KB