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Message-ID: <da95e01d-24bd-676b-3a48-bafda1b36cda@linux.ibm.com>
Date:   Thu, 27 Apr 2023 12:39:03 +0530
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v21 5/7] x86/crash: add x86 crash hotplug support
To:     Eric DeVolder <eric.devolder@oracle.com>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, x86@kernel.org,
        kexec@lists.infradead.org, ebiederm@xmission.com,
        dyoung@redhat.com, bhe@redhat.com, vgoyal@redhat.com
Cc:     tglx@linutronix.de, mingo@redhat.com, bp@alien8.de,
        dave.hansen@linux.intel.com, hpa@zytor.com,
        nramas@linux.microsoft.com, thomas.lendacky@amd.com,
        robh@kernel.org, efault@gmx.de, rppt@kernel.org, david@redhat.com,
        sourabhjain@linux.ibm.com, konrad.wilk@oracle.com,
        boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com
References: <20230404180326.6890-1-eric.devolder@oracle.com>
 <20230404180326.6890-6-eric.devolder@oracle.com>
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From:   Hari Bathini <hbathini@linux.ibm.com>
In-Reply-To: <20230404180326.6890-6-eric.devolder@oracle.com>
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Hi Eric,

On 04/04/23 11:33 pm, Eric DeVolder wrote:
> When CPU or memory is hot un/plugged, or off/onlined, the crash
> elfcorehdr, which describes the CPUs and memory in the system,
> must also be updated.
> 
> The segment containing the elfcorehdr is identified at run-time
> in crash_core:crash_handle_hotplug_event(), which works for both
> the kexec_load() and kexec_file_load() syscalls. A new elfcorehdr
> is generated from the available CPUs and memory into a buffer,
> and then installed over the top of the existing elfcorehdr.
> 
> In the patch 'kexec: exclude elfcorehdr from the segment digest'
> the need to update purgatory due to the change in elfcorehdr was
> eliminated.  As a result, no changes to purgatory or boot_params
> (as the elfcorehdr= kernel command line parameter pointer
> remains unchanged and correct) are needed, just elfcorehdr.
> 
> To accommodate a growing number of resources via hotplug, the
> elfcorehdr segment must be sufficiently large enough to accommodate
> changes, see the CRASH_MAX_MEMORY_RANGES description. This is used
> only on the kexec_file_load() syscall; for kexec_load() userspace
> will need to size the segment similarly.
> 
> To accommodate kexec_load() syscall in the absence of

Firstly, thanks! This series is a nice improvement to kdump support
in hotplug environment.

One concern though is that this change assumes corresponding support
in kexec-tools. Without that support kexec_load would fail to boot
with digest verification failure, iiuc.

I would suggest a flag to advertise to the kernel that kexec-tools/
userspace wants in-kernel update. Something like KEXEC_IN_KERNEL_UPDATE
on top of existing flags like KEXEC_ON_CRASH & KEXEC_PRESERVE_CONTEXT.
This flag can be used to decide whether in-kernel update needs to be
enforced or not. That should make transition to this change smoother
without having to break userspace.

Thanks
Hari