1Ramoops oops/panic logger
2=========================
3
4Sergiu Iordache <sergiu@chromium.org>
5
6Updated: 17 November 2011
7
8Introduction
9------------
10
11Ramoops is an oops/panic logger that writes its logs to RAM before the system
12crashes. It works by logging oopses and panics in a circular buffer. Ramoops
13needs a system with persistent RAM so that the content of that area can
14survive after a restart.
15
16Ramoops concepts
17----------------
18
19Ramoops uses a predefined memory area to store the dump. The start and size
20and type of the memory area are set using three variables:
21
22  * ``mem_address`` for the start
23  * ``mem_size`` for the size. The memory size will be rounded down to a
24    power of two.
25  * ``mem_type`` to specify if the memory type (default is pgprot_writecombine).
26
27Typically the default value of ``mem_type=0`` should be used as that sets the pstore
28mapping to pgprot_writecombine. Setting ``mem_type=1`` attempts to use
29``pgprot_noncached``, which only works on some platforms. This is because pstore
30depends on atomic operations. At least on ARM, pgprot_noncached causes the
31memory to be mapped strongly ordered, and atomic operations on strongly ordered
32memory are implementation defined, and won't work on many ARMs such as omaps.
33
34The memory area is divided into ``record_size`` chunks (also rounded down to
35power of two) and each kmesg dump writes a ``record_size`` chunk of
36information.
37
38Limiting which kinds of kmsg dumps are stored can be controlled via
39the ``max_reason`` value, as defined in include/linux/kmsg_dump.h's
40``enum kmsg_dump_reason``. For example, to store both Oopses and Panics,
41``max_reason`` should be set to 2 (KMSG_DUMP_OOPS), to store only Panics
42``max_reason`` should be set to 1 (KMSG_DUMP_PANIC). Setting this to 0
43(KMSG_DUMP_UNDEF), means the reason filtering will be controlled by the
44``printk.always_kmsg_dump`` boot param: if unset, it'll be KMSG_DUMP_OOPS,
45otherwise KMSG_DUMP_MAX.
46
47The module uses a counter to record multiple dumps but the counter gets reset
48on restart (i.e. new dumps after the restart will overwrite old ones).
49
50Ramoops also supports software ECC protection of persistent memory regions.
51This might be useful when a hardware reset was used to bring the machine back
52to life (i.e. a watchdog triggered). In such cases, RAM may be somewhat
53corrupt, but usually it is restorable.
54
55Setting the parameters
56----------------------
57
58Setting the ramoops parameters can be done in several different manners:
59
60 A. Use the module parameters (which have the names of the variables described
61 as before). For quick debugging, you can also reserve parts of memory during
62 boot and then use the reserved memory for ramoops. For example, assuming a
63 machine with > 128 MB of memory, the following kernel command line will tell
64 the kernel to use only the first 128 MB of memory, and place ECC-protected
65 ramoops region at 128 MB boundary::
66
67	mem=128M ramoops.mem_address=0x8000000 ramoops.ecc=1
68
69 B. Use Device Tree bindings, as described in
70 ``Documentation/devicetree/bindings/reserved-memory/ramoops.txt``.
71 For example::
72
73	reserved-memory {
74		#address-cells = <2>;
75		#size-cells = <2>;
76		ranges;
77
78		ramoops@8f000000 {
79			compatible = "ramoops";
80			reg = <0 0x8f000000 0 0x100000>;
81			record-size = <0x4000>;
82			console-size = <0x4000>;
83		};
84	};
85
86 C. Use a platform device and set the platform data. The parameters can then
87 be set through that platform data. An example of doing that is:
88
89 .. code-block:: c
90
91  #include <linux/pstore_ram.h>
92  [...]
93
94  static struct ramoops_platform_data ramoops_data = {
95        .mem_size               = <...>,
96        .mem_address            = <...>,
97        .mem_type               = <...>,
98        .record_size            = <...>,
99        .max_reason             = <...>,
100        .ecc                    = <...>,
101  };
102
103  static struct platform_device ramoops_dev = {
104        .name = "ramoops",
105        .dev = {
106                .platform_data = &ramoops_data,
107        },
108  };
109
110  [... inside a function ...]
111  int ret;
112
113  ret = platform_device_register(&ramoops_dev);
114  if (ret) {
115	printk(KERN_ERR "unable to register platform device\n");
116	return ret;
117  }
118
119You can specify either RAM memory or peripheral devices' memory. However, when
120specifying RAM, be sure to reserve the memory by issuing memblock_reserve()
121very early in the architecture code, e.g.::
122
123	#include <linux/memblock.h>
124
125	memblock_reserve(ramoops_data.mem_address, ramoops_data.mem_size);
126
127Dump format
128-----------
129
130The data dump begins with a header, currently defined as ``====`` followed by a
131timestamp and a new line. The dump then continues with the actual data.
132
133Reading the data
134----------------
135
136The dump data can be read from the pstore filesystem. The format for these
137files is ``dmesg-ramoops-N``, where N is the record number in memory. To delete
138a stored record from RAM, simply unlink the respective pstore file.
139
140Persistent function tracing
141---------------------------
142
143Persistent function tracing might be useful for debugging software or hardware
144related hangs. The functions call chain log is stored in a ``ftrace-ramoops``
145file. Here is an example of usage::
146
147 # mount -t debugfs debugfs /sys/kernel/debug/
148 # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/pstore/record_ftrace
149 # reboot -f
150 [...]
151 # mount -t pstore pstore /mnt/
152 # tail /mnt/ftrace-ramoops
153 0 ffffffff8101ea64  ffffffff8101bcda  native_apic_mem_read <- disconnect_bsp_APIC+0x6a/0xc0
154 0 ffffffff8101ea44  ffffffff8101bcf6  native_apic_mem_write <- disconnect_bsp_APIC+0x86/0xc0
155 0 ffffffff81020084  ffffffff8101a4b5  hpet_disable <- native_machine_shutdown+0x75/0x90
156 0 ffffffff81005f94  ffffffff8101a4bb  iommu_shutdown_noop <- native_machine_shutdown+0x7b/0x90
157 0 ffffffff8101a6a1  ffffffff8101a437  native_machine_emergency_restart <- native_machine_restart+0x37/0x40
158 0 ffffffff811f9876  ffffffff8101a73a  acpi_reboot <- native_machine_emergency_restart+0xaa/0x1e0
159 0 ffffffff8101a514  ffffffff8101a772  mach_reboot_fixups <- native_machine_emergency_restart+0xe2/0x1e0
160 0 ffffffff811d9c54  ffffffff8101a7a0  __const_udelay <- native_machine_emergency_restart+0x110/0x1e0
161 0 ffffffff811d9c34  ffffffff811d9c80  __delay <- __const_udelay+0x30/0x40
162 0 ffffffff811d9d14  ffffffff811d9c3f  delay_tsc <- __delay+0xf/0x20
163