mm: add a basic debugging framework for memory initialisation

Boot initialisation is very complex, with significant numbers of
architecture-specific routines, hooks and code ordering.  While significant
amounts of the initialisation is architecture-independent, it trusts the data
received from the architecture layer.  This is a mistake, and has resulted in
a number of difficult-to-diagnose bugs.

This patchset adds some validation and tracing to memory initialisation.  It
also introduces a few basic defensive measures.  The validation code can be
explicitly disabled for embedded systems.

This patch:

Add additional debugging and verification code for memory initialisation.

Once enabled, the verification checks are always run and when required
additional debugging information may be outputted via a mminit_loglevel=
command-line parameter.

The verification code is placed in a new file mm/mm_init.c.  Ideally other mm
initialisation code will be moved here over time.

Signed-off-by: Mel Gorman <mel@csn.ul.ie>
Cc: Christoph Lameter <cl@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Andy Whitcroft <apw@shadowen.org>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This commit is contained in:
Mel Gorman
2008-07-23 21:26:49 -07:00
committed by Linus Torvalds
parent 9483a578df
commit 6b74ab97bc
6 changed files with 79 additions and 9 deletions

View File

@@ -505,6 +505,18 @@ config DEBUG_WRITECOUNT
If unsure, say N.
config DEBUG_MEMORY_INIT
bool "Debug memory initialisation" if EMBEDDED
default !EMBEDDED
help
Enable this for additional checks during memory initialisation.
The sanity checks verify aspects of the VM such as the memory model
and other information provided by the architecture. Verbose
information will be printed at KERN_DEBUG loglevel depending
on the mminit_loglevel= command-line option.
If unsure, say Y
config DEBUG_LIST
bool "Debug linked list manipulation"
depends on DEBUG_KERNEL