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diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/coredump/README.rst b/tools/testing/selftests/coredump/README.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..164a7aa181c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/coredump/README.rst @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +coredump selftest +================= + +Background context +------------------ + +`coredump` is a feature which dumps a process's memory space when the process terminates +unexpectedly (e.g. due to segmentation fault), which can be useful for debugging. By default, +`coredump` dumps the memory to the file named `core`, but this behavior can be changed by writing a +different file name to `/proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern`. Furthermore, `coredump` can be piped to a +user-space program by writing the pipe symbol (`|`) followed by the command to be executed to +`/proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern`. For the full description, see `man 5 core`. + +The piped user program may be interested in reading the stack pointers of the crashed process. The +crashed process's stack pointers can be read from `procfs`: it is the `kstkesp` field in +`/proc/$PID/stat`. See `man 5 proc` for all the details. + +The problem +----------- +While a thread is active, the stack pointer is unsafe to read and therefore the `kstkesp` field +reads zero. But when the thread is dead (e.g. during a coredump), this field should have valid +value. + +However, this was broken in the past and `kstkesp` was zero even during coredump: + +* commit 0a1eb2d474ed ("fs/proc: Stop reporting eip and esp in /proc/PID/stat") changed kstkesp to + always be zero + +* commit fd7d56270b52 ("fs/proc: Report eip/esp in /prod/PID/stat for coredumping") fixed it for the + coredumping thread. However, other threads in a coredumping process still had the problem. + +* commit cb8f381f1613 ("fs/proc/array.c: allow reporting eip/esp for all coredumping threads") fixed + for all threads in a coredumping process. + +* commit 92307383082d ("coredump: Don't perform any cleanups before dumping core") broke it again + for the other threads in a coredumping process. + +The problem has been fixed now, but considering the history, it may appear again in the future. + +The goal of this test +--------------------- +This test detects problem with reading `kstkesp` during coredump by doing the following: + +#. Tell the kernel to execute the "stackdump" script when a coredump happens. This script + reads the stack pointers of all threads of crashed processes. + +#. Spawn a child process who creates some threads and then crashes. + +#. Read the output from the "stackdump" script, and make sure all stack pointer values are + non-zero. |