Re: [Crash-utility] [Qemu-devel] uniquely identifying KDUMP files that originate from QEMU

On 11/12/2014 08:26 AM, Petr Tesarik wrote: > On Wed, 12 Nov 2014 08:18:04 -0500 > Christopher Covington <cov(a)codeaurora.org&gt; wrote: > >> On 11/12/2014 03:05 AM, Petr Tesarik wrote: >>> On Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:27:44 -0500 >>> Christopher Covington <cov(a)codeaurora.org&gt; wrote: >>> >>>> On 11/11/2014 06:22 AM, Laszlo Ersek wrote: >>>>> (Note: I'm not subscribed to either qemu-devel or the kexec list; please >>>>> keep me CC'd.) >>>>> >>>>> QEMU is able to dump the guest's memory in KDUMP format (kdump-zlib, >>>>> kdump-lzo, kdump-snappy) with the "dump-guest-memory" QMP command. >>>>> >>>>> The resultant vmcore is usually analyzed with the "crash" utility. >>>>> >>>>> The original tool producing such files is kdump. Unlike the procedure >>>>> performed by QEMU, kdump runs from *within* the guest (under a kexec'd >>>>> kdump kernel), and has more information about the original guest kernel >>>>> state (which is being dumped) than QEMU. To QEMU, the guest kernel state >>>>> is opaque. >>>>> >>>>> For this reason, the kdump preparation logic in QEMU hardcodes a number >>>>> of fields in the kdump header. The direct issue is the "phys_base" >>>>> field. Refer to dump.c, functions create_header32(), create_header64(), >>>>> and "include/sysemu/dump.h", macro PHYS_BASE (with the replacement text >>>>> "0"). >>>>> >>>>> http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git;a=blob;f=dump.c;h=9c7dad8f865af3b778589dd... >>>>> >>>>> http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git;a=blob;f=include/sysemu/dump.h;h=7e4ec5c7... >>>>> >>>>> This works in most cases, because the guest Linux kernel indeed tends to >>>>> be loaded at guest-phys address 0. However, when the guest Linux kernel >>>>> is booted on top of OVMF (which has a somewhat unusual UEFI memory map), >>>>> then the guest Linux kernel is loaded at 16MB, thereby getting out of >>>>> sync with the phys_base=0 setting visible in the KDUMP header. >>>>> >>>>> This trips up the "crash" utility. >>>>> >>>>> Dave worked around the issue in "crash" for ELF format dumps -- "crash" >>>>> can identify QEMU as the originator of the vmcore by finding the QEMU >>>>> notes in the ELF vmcore. If those are present, then "crash" employs a >>>>> heuristic, probing for a phys_base up to 32MB, in 1MB steps. >>>> >>>> What advantages does KDUMP have over ELF? >>> >>> It's smaller (data is compressed), and it contains a header with some >>> useful information (e.g. the crashed kernel's version and release). >> >> What if the ELF dumper used SHF_COMPRESSED or could dump an ELF.xz? > > Not the same thing. With KDUMP, each page is compressed separately, so > if a utility like crash needs a page from the middle, it can find it > and unpack it immediately. If we had an ELF.xz, then the whole file > must be unpacked before it can be used. And unpacking a few terabytes > takes ... a while. ;-) Understood on the ELF.xz approach, but why couldn't each page (or maybe a configurable size) be a SHF_COMPRESSED section?