Re: [PATCH] powerpc/fadump: Fix the race in crash_fadump().

On 10/10/2016 04:22 PM, Michael Ellerman wrote:

Mahesh J Salgaonkar [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

From: Mahesh Salgaonkar <redacted>

There are chances that multiple CPUs can call crash_fadump() simultaneously
and would start duplicating same info to vmcoreinfo ELF note section. This
causes makedumpfile to fail during kdump capture. One example is,
triggering dumprestart from HMC which sends system reset to all the CPUs at
once.

...

quoted

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c b/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c
index b3a6633..2ed9d1c 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/fadump.c

@@ -402,8 +402,14 @@ void crash_fadump(struct pt_regs *regs, const char *str)
 {
 	struct fadump_crash_info_header *fdh = NULL;
 
-	if (!fw_dump.dump_registered || !fw_dump.fadumphdr_addr)
+	mutex_lock(&fadump_mutex);

What happens when a crashing CPU can't get the mutex and goes to sleep?

Got your point. I think I should use mutex_trylock() here. There is only
two reason crashing CPU can't get mutex, 1) Another CPU also crashing
that got the mutex and on its way to trigger fadump. OR 2) We are in
middle of fadump register/un-register, in which case we can just return
and go to normal panic.

Thanks,
-Mahesh.