On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 12:51 PM <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2025 17:06:32 +1300
> From: Tao Liu <[email protected]>
> Subject: [Crash-utility] [PATCH] Revert "vmcoreinfo: read vmcoreinfo
>         using 'vmcoreinfo_data' when unavailable in elf note"
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: Tao Liu <[email protected]>
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"; x-default=true
>
> This patch will cause a regression on some x86_64 vmcores.
>
>     $ crash -s vmcore vmlinux.gz
>     WARNING: vmcoreinfo is empty, will read from symbols
>     crash: cannot malloc vmcoreinfo buffer
>     crash: /var/tmp/vmlinux.gz_fWV3kA and vmcore do not match!
>
> The root cause is, in main.c, is_kdump() calls is_netdump(), which will
> set pc->read_vmcoreinfo as vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory(), rather than
> original vmcoreinfo_read_string().
>
> Later in machdep_init(PRE_SYMTAB), vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory() doesn't
> get "relocate" string, so fails for set kaslr flag, then fails for
> linux_banner detection:
>
>     Thread 1 "crash" hit Breakpoint 2, verify_version ():
>     1096                if (!IS_KVADDR(linux_banner))
>     (gdb) p/x linux_banner
>     $4 = 0xffffffff81e00100
>
>     crash> sym linux_banner
>     ffffffff9aa00100 (R) linux_banner
>
> As we can see with the patch applied, linux_banner got a wrong address.
> So this patch currently is unsafe, and should be reverted before the fix.
>
> Signed-off-by: Tao Liu <[email protected]>
> ---
>
> Since it is too close to the new release date of crash utility, I don't
> have enough time for full root cause analysis and re-testing. So currently
> the best option is to revert it for now, and fix it in the next release
> then
> re-apply.
>
>
Agree. Thanks for working on it, Tao. So: Acke

Lianbo

---
>  defs.h     |  1 -
>  diskdump.c | 18 ------------------
>  kernel.c   | 17 +++++------------
>  netdump.c  | 19 -------------------
>  4 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 50 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/defs.h b/defs.h
> index ab4aee8..ae6ea01 100644
> --- a/defs.h
> +++ b/defs.h
> @@ -6225,7 +6225,6 @@ void dump_kernel_table(int);
>  void dump_bt_info(struct bt_info *, char *where);
>  void dump_log(int);
>  void parse_kernel_version(char *);
> -char *vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory(const char *);
>
>  #define LOG_LEVEL(v) ((v) & 0x07)
>  #define SHOW_LOG_LEVEL    (0x1)
> diff --git a/diskdump.c b/diskdump.c
> index de90755..ce3cbb7 100644
> --- a/diskdump.c
> +++ b/diskdump.c
> @@ -1041,13 +1041,6 @@ pfn_to_pos(ulong pfn)
>         return desc_pos;
>  }
>
> -/**
> - * Check if vmcoreinfo in vmcore is missing/empty
> - */
> -static bool is_diskdump_vmcoreinfo_empty(void)
> -{
> -       return (dd->sub_header_kdump->size_vmcoreinfo == 0);
> -}
>
>  /*
>   *  Determine whether a file is a diskdump creation, and if TRUE,
> @@ -1095,17 +1088,6 @@ is_diskdump(char *file)
>
>         pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_string;
>
> -       /*
> -        * vmcoreinfo can be empty in case of dump collected via virsh-dump
> -        *
> -        * check if vmcoreinfo is not available in vmcore, and try to read
> -        * the vmcoreinfo from memory, using "vmcoreinfo_data" symbol
> -        */
> -       if (is_diskdump_vmcoreinfo_empty()) {
> -               error(WARNING, "vmcoreinfo is empty, will read from
> symbols\n");
> -               pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory;
> -       }
> -
>         if ((pc->flags2 & GET_LOG) && KDUMP_CMPRS_VALID()) {
>                 pc->dfd = dd->dfd;
>                 pc->readmem = read_diskdump;
> diff --git a/kernel.c b/kernel.c
> index 13f3374..e077275 100644
> --- a/kernel.c
> +++ b/kernel.c
> @@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ static ulong dump_audit_skb_queue(ulong);
>  static ulong __dump_audit(char *);
>  static void dump_audit(void);
>  static void dump_printk_safe_seq_buf(int);
> +static char *vmcoreinfo_read_string(const char *);
>  static void check_vmcoreinfo(void);
>  static int is_pvops_xen(void);
>  static int get_linux_banner_from_vmlinux(char *, size_t);
> @@ -11894,8 +11895,8 @@ dump_printk_safe_seq_buf(int msg_flags)
>   * Returns a string (that has to be freed by the caller) that contains the
>   * value for key or NULL if the key has not been found.
>   */
> -char *
> -vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory(const char *key)
> +static char *
> +vmcoreinfo_read_string(const char *key)
>  {
>         char *buf, *value_string, *p1, *p2;
>         size_t value_length;
> @@ -11905,14 +11906,6 @@ vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory(const char *key)
>
>         buf = value_string = NULL;
>
> -       if (!(pc->flags & GDB_INIT)) {
> -               /*
> -                * GDB interface hasn't been initialised yet, so can't
> -                * access vmcoreinfo_data
> -                */
> -               return NULL;
> -       }
> -
>         switch (get_symbol_type("vmcoreinfo_data", NULL, NULL))
>         {
>         case TYPE_CODE_PTR:
> @@ -11968,10 +11961,10 @@ check_vmcoreinfo(void)
>                 switch (get_symbol_type("vmcoreinfo_data", NULL, NULL))
>                 {
>                 case TYPE_CODE_PTR:
> -                       pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory;
> +                       pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_string;
>                         break;
>                 case TYPE_CODE_ARRAY:
> -                       pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory;
> +                       pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_string;
>                         break;
>                 }
>         }
> diff --git a/netdump.c b/netdump.c
> index 69100a9..c7ff009 100644
> --- a/netdump.c
> +++ b/netdump.c
> @@ -111,14 +111,6 @@ map_cpus_to_prstatus(void)
>         FREEBUF(nt_ptr);
>  }
>
> -/**
> - * Check if vmcoreinfo in vmcore is missing/empty
> - */
> -static bool is_netdump_vmcoreinfo_empty(void)
> -{
> -       return (nd->size_vmcoreinfo == 0);
> -}
> -
>  /*
>   *  Determine whether a file is a netdump/diskdump/kdump creation,
>   *  and if TRUE, initialize the vmcore_data structure.
> @@ -472,17 +464,6 @@ is_netdump(char *file, ulong source_query)
>
>         pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_string;
>
> -       /*
> -        * vmcoreinfo can be empty in case of dump collected via virsh-dump
> -        *
> -        * check if vmcoreinfo is not available in vmcore, and try to read
> -        * the vmcoreinfo from memory, using "vmcoreinfo_data" symbol
> -        */
> -       if (is_netdump_vmcoreinfo_empty()) {
> -               error(WARNING, "vmcoreinfo is empty, will read from
> symbols\n");
> -               pc->read_vmcoreinfo = vmcoreinfo_read_from_memory;
> -       }
> -
>         if ((source_query == KDUMP_LOCAL) &&
>             (pc->flags2 & GET_OSRELEASE))
>                 kdump_get_osrelease();
> --
> 2.47.0
>
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