linux/arch/x86
Bernhard Kaindl f212ec4b7b x86: early boot debugging via FireWire (ohci1394_dma=early)
This patch adds a new configuration option, which adds support for a new
early_param which gets checked in arch/x86/kernel/setup_{32,64}.c:setup_arch()
to decide wether OHCI-1394 FireWire controllers should be initialized and
enabled for physical DMA access to allow remote debugging of early problems
like issues ACPI or other subsystems which are executed very early.

If the config option is not enabled, no code is changed, and if the boot
paramenter is not given, no new code is executed, and independent of that,
all new code is freed after boot, so the config option can be even enabled
in standard, non-debug kernels.

With specialized tools, it is then possible to get debugging information
from machines which have no serial ports (notebooks) such as the printk
buffer contents, or any data which can be referenced from global pointers,
if it is stored below the 4GB limit and even memory dumps of of the physical
RAM region below the 4GB limit can be taken without any cooperation from the
CPU of the host, so the machine can be crashed early, it does not matter.

In the extreme, even kernel debuggers can be accessed in this way. I wrote
a small kgdb module and an accompanying gdb stub for FireWire which allows
to gdb to talk to kgdb using remote remory reads and writes over FireWire.

An version of the gdb stub fore FireWire is able to read all global data
from a system which is running a a normal kernel without any kernel debugger,
without any interruption or support of the system's CPU. That way, e.g. the
task struct and so on can be read and even manipulated when the physical DMA
access is granted.

A HOWTO is included in this patch, in Documentation/debugging-via-ohci1394.txt
and I've put a copy online at
ftp://ftp.suse.de/private/bk/firewire/docs/debugging-via-ohci1394.txt

It also has links to all the tools which are available to make use of it
another copy of it is online at:
ftp://ftp.suse.de/private/bk/firewire/kernel/ohci1394_dma_early-v2.diff

Signed-Off-By: Bernhard Kaindl <bk@suse.de>
Tested-By: Thomas Renninger <trenn@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
2008-01-30 13:34:11 +01:00
..
boot x86: unify arch/x86/boot/compressed/misc_??.c 2008-01-30 13:33:38 +01:00
configs x86: Set CFQ as default in 32-bit defconfig 2008-01-30 13:32:49 +01:00
crypto [CRYPTO] twofish: Merge common glue code 2008-01-14 17:07:57 +11:00
ia32 x86: remove unneded casts 2008-01-30 13:33:23 +01:00
kernel x86: early boot debugging via FireWire (ohci1394_dma=early) 2008-01-30 13:34:11 +01:00
lguest x86: remove depends on X86_32 from PARAVIRT & PARAVIRT_GUEST 2008-01-30 13:33:32 +01:00
lib x86: fix usage of .section .sched.text in assembler code 2008-01-30 13:33:37 +01:00
mach-default spelling fixes: arch/i386/ 2007-10-20 01:13:56 +02:00
mach-es7000 i386: es7000 minor cleanups 2007-10-17 20:16:15 +02:00
mach-generic spelling fixes: arch/i386/ 2007-10-20 01:13:56 +02:00
mach-rdc321x x86: add support for the RDC R-321x SoC 2008-01-30 13:33:36 +01:00
mach-visws x86: cleanup mpspec variants 2008-01-30 13:30:35 +01:00
mach-voyager x86: convert TSC disabling to generic cpuid disable bitmap 2008-01-30 13:33:20 +01:00
math-emu x86: arch/x86/math-emu/errors.c: fix printk warnings 2008-01-30 13:32:13 +01:00
mm x86: don't special-case pmd allocations as much 2008-01-30 13:34:11 +01:00
oprofile x86: rename stack_pointer to kernel_trap_sp 2008-01-30 13:33:16 +01:00
pci x86: serverworks: IRQ routing needs no _p 2008-01-30 13:33:14 +01:00
power x86: make __{save,restore}_processor_state static 2008-01-30 13:31:23 +01:00
vdso x86: add vdso32-int80-syms.lds to .gitignore 2008-01-30 13:33:24 +01:00
video i386: move video 2007-10-11 11:16:56 +02:00
xen x86: return the page table level in lookup_address() 2008-01-30 13:33:43 +01:00
Kconfig x86: replace boot_ioremap() with enhanced bt_ioremap() - remove boot_ioremap() 2008-01-30 13:33:44 +01:00
Kconfig.cpu x86: reduce CONFIG_X86_PPRO_FENCE bloat 2008-01-30 13:32:31 +01:00
Kconfig.debug x86: cpa: fix the self-test 2008-01-30 13:34:09 +01:00
Makefile x86: add support for the RDC R-321x SoC 2008-01-30 13:33:36 +01:00
Makefile_32.cpu x86: move i386 and x86_64 Makefiles to arch/x86 2007-10-25 22:27:34 +02:00