Documentation/ramoops.txt

   1 Ramoops oops/panic logger
   2 =========================
   3
   4 Sergiu Iordache <sergiu@chromium.org>
   5
   6 Updated: 17 November 2011
   7
   8 0. Introduction
   9
  10 Ramoops is an oops/panic logger that writes its logs to RAM before the system
  11 crashes. It works by logging oopses and panics in a circular buffer. Ramoops
  12 needs a system with persistent RAM so that the content of that area can
  13 survive after a restart.
  14
  15 1. Ramoops concepts
  16
  17 Ramoops uses a predefined memory area to store the dump. The start and size of
  18 the memory area are set using two variables:
  19   * "mem_address" for the start
  20   * "mem_size" for the size. The memory size will be rounded down to a
  21   power of two.
  22
  23 The memory area is divided into "record_size" chunks (also rounded down to
  24 power of two) and each oops/panic writes a "record_size" chunk of
  25 information.
  26
  27 Dumping both oopses and panics can be done by setting 1 in the "dump_oops"
  28 variable while setting 0 in that variable dumps only the panics.
  29
  30 The module uses a counter to record multiple dumps but the counter gets reset
  31 on restart (i.e. new dumps after the restart will overwrite old ones).
  32
  33 Ramoops also supports software ECC protection of persistent memory regions.
  34 This might be useful when a hardware reset was used to bring the machine back
  35 to life (i.e. a watchdog triggered). In such cases, RAM may be somewhat
  36 corrupt, but usually it is restorable.
  37
  38 2. Setting the parameters
  39
  40 Setting the ramoops parameters can be done in 2 different manners:
  41  1. Use the module parameters (which have the names of the variables described
  42  as before).
  43  For quick debugging, you can also reserve parts of memory during boot
  44  and then use the reserved memory for ramoops. For example, assuming a machine
  45  with > 128 MB of memory, the following kernel command line will tell the
  46  kernel to use only the first 128 MB of memory, and place ECC-protected ramoops
  47  region at 128 MB boundary:
  48  "mem=128M ramoops.mem_address=0x8000000 ramoops.ecc=1"
  49  2. Use a platform device and set the platform data. The parameters can then
  50  be set through that platform data. An example of doing that is:
  51
  52 #include <linux/pstore_ram.h>
  53 [...]
  54
  55 static struct ramoops_platform_data ramoops_data = {
  56         .mem_size               = <...>,
  57         .mem_address            = <...>,
  58         .record_size            = <...>,
  59         .dump_oops              = <...>,
  60         .ecc                    = <...>,
  61 };
  62
  63 static struct platform_device ramoops_dev = {
  64         .name = "ramoops",
  65         .dev = {
  66                 .platform_data = &ramoops_data,
  67         },
  68 };
  69
  70 [... inside a function ...]
  71 int ret;
  72
  73 ret = platform_device_register(&ramoops_dev);
  74 if (ret) {
  75         printk(KERN_ERR "unable to register platform device\n");
  76         return ret;
  77 }
  78
  79 You can specify either RAM memory or peripheral devices' memory. However, when
  80 specifying RAM, be sure to reserve the memory by issuing memblock_reserve()
  81 very early in the architecture code, e.g.:
  82
  83 #include <linux/memblock.h>
  84
  85 memblock_reserve(ramoops_data.mem_address, ramoops_data.mem_size);
  86
  87 3. Dump format
  88
  89 The data dump begins with a header, currently defined as "====" followed by a
  90 timestamp and a new line. The dump then continues with the actual data.
  91
  92 4. Reading the data
  93
  94 The dump data can be read from the pstore filesystem. The format for these
  95 files is "dmesg-ramoops-N", where N is the record number in memory. To delete
  96 a stored record from RAM, simply unlink the respective pstore file.
  97
  98 5. Persistent function tracing
  99
 100 Persistent function tracing might be useful for debugging software or hardware
 101 related hangs. The functions call chain log is stored in a "ftrace-ramoops"
 102 file. Here is an example of usage:
 103
 104  # mount -t debugfs debugfs /sys/kernel/debug/
 105  # cd /sys/kernel/debug/tracing
 106  # echo function > current_tracer
 107  # echo 1 > options/func_pstore
 108  # reboot -f
 109  [...]
 110  # mount -t pstore pstore /mnt/
 111  # tail /mnt/ftrace-ramoops
 112  0 ffffffff8101ea64  ffffffff8101bcda  native_apic_mem_read <- disconnect_bsp_APIC+0x6a/0xc0
 113  0 ffffffff8101ea44  ffffffff8101bcf6  native_apic_mem_write <- disconnect_bsp_APIC+0x86/0xc0
 114  0 ffffffff81020084  ffffffff8101a4b5  hpet_disable <- native_machine_shutdown+0x75/0x90
 115  0 ffffffff81005f94  ffffffff8101a4bb  iommu_shutdown_noop <- native_machine_shutdown+0x7b/0x90
 116  0 ffffffff8101a6a1  ffffffff8101a437  native_machine_emergency_restart <- native_machine_restart+0x37/0x40
 117  0 ffffffff811f9876  ffffffff8101a73a  acpi_reboot <- native_machine_emergency_restart+0xaa/0x1e0
 118  0 ffffffff8101a514  ffffffff8101a772  mach_reboot_fixups <- native_machine_emergency_restart+0xe2/0x1e0
 119  0 ffffffff811d9c54  ffffffff8101a7a0  __const_udelay <- native_machine_emergency_restart+0x110/0x1e0
 120  0 ffffffff811d9c34  ffffffff811d9c80  __delay <- __const_udelay+0x30/0x40
 121  0 ffffffff811d9d14  ffffffff811d9c3f  delay_tsc <- __delay+0xf/0x20