[announce] kmsgdump for 2.5.65/66

["Randy.Dunlap" <rddunlap@osdl.org>]

On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 14:36:07 -0500 Nicholas Wourms <nwourms@myrealbox.com> wrote:

| Randy.Dunlap wrote:
|
| > I've done some 2.5.xyz work on kmsgdump (dump kernel messages to
| > floppy).  I'll try to get back to it soon.
| > 
| 
| Thank you!  That'd be a god-send for those of us w/o serial 
| ports and who have very cramped hands from hand-copying 
| panics :-D.  Frankly, I can't imagine why something a simple 
| as this isn't in the kernel.  Technically, it isn't a 
| debugger, so I don't think it violates Linus' "No Kernel 
| Debuggers in the Kernel" rule.


so.....

kmsgdump for Linux 2.5.65/2.5.66
2003-03-31
version 0.4.5

kmsgdump home:  http://w.ods.org/tools/kmsgdump/ (Willy Tarreau)
my kmsgdump patches:  http://www.xenotime.net/linux/kmsgdump/

'kmsgdump-2565.diff' applies cleanly to Linux 2.5.65 and with
just a few patch offsets to Linux 2.5.66.

Tested on P4 UP and P4 SMP (Linux 2.5.65/66).

======================================================================

kmsgdump is a Linux kernel patch for x86 that can be used to dump the
contents of the kernel log buffer to a floppy disk or to a printer
(one that the system BIOS knows about) after a kernel panic happens.

======================================================================

caveats:

1.  This version of kmsgdump doesn't support kernel log buffers of more
than 60 KB (due to x86 real-mode segment addressing).  However, the
kernel log buffer is currently always a power of 2 (like 16 or 32 or
64 KB), so a 32 KB log buffer is the largest that is currently supported.

2.  The kmsgdump text-mode interface doesn't work with a USB-only keyboard
setup.  I had to add a PS/2 keyboard to my test system to use it.

======================================================================

TODO:

1.  Limit LOG_BUF_LEN to 60 KB then fix this limit by having a moving
    segment register value

###
--
~Randy