linux kernel / android debug notes

1 Read panic information

Question: How to save kernel panic information? What is apanic and how to enable apanic?

Answer:
    apanic is a panic handler that google added to implement feature that when linux kernel panic, the console message and call stack can be saved to flash.
apanic implemention file is at drivers/misc/apanic.c

To enable apanic:
1.define a partition on nand flash
2.enable CONFIG_APANIC and set CONFIG_APANIC_PLABEL to the partition name you add, the default name is "kpanic"

apanic will register mtd partition notifier and it will use mtd_info mtd->read, mtd->write and mtd->panic_write.
Qualcomm's flash driver is at drivers/flash/devices/msm_nand.c
currently, there is no panic_write implementation.
So OEM need to add it in msm_nand_scan().
Without panic_write, if panic happen in irq context, then the panic information can not be saved.
As it is in interrupt context, so on panic_write, there shall not call any api that could schedule out, can not use DMA/DMOV.

When APANIC is enabled, when panic happen, apanic handler will save kernel dmesg log and all process's call stack to the "kpanic" partition.
When reboot, the apanic init will detect there is panic info in the partition, and it will expose the information by

/proc/apanic_console

/proc/apanic_threads

in init.rc (system/core/rootdir/init.c)

it will save them to 

/data/dontpanic/apanic_console

/data/dontpanic/apanic_threads

then clear the partition by write 1 to /proc/apanic_console

For emmc device, current framework does not support, but it is not difficult to add this feature,also need a read/write/panic_write for emmc device.

root@android:/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name # ll
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 aboot -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p5
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 auto -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p20
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 boot -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p7
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 cache -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p15   // cache pronounce [kæʃ]
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 fsg -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p19
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 grow -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p24
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 kpanic -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p22
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 misc -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p17
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 modem -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p1
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 modemst1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p10
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 modemst2 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p11
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 params -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p21
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 persist -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p14
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 recovery -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p18
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 rpm -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p6
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 sbl1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 sbl2 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 sbl3 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p4
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 ssd -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p23
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 system -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p12
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 tombstones -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p16
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 tz -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p8
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              1970-01-08 08:01 userdata -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p13

root@android:/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1 # cat /proc/partitions
cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name


 179        0    7634944 mmcblk0
 179        1      65536 mmcblk0p1
 179        2        512 mmcblk0p2
 179        3       1536 mmcblk0p3
 179        4       2048 mmcblk0p4
 179        5       2560 mmcblk0p5
 179        6        512 mmcblk0p6
 179        7      10240 mmcblk0p7
 179        8        512 mmcblk0p8
 179        9       2560 mmcblk0p9
 179       10       3072 mmcblk0p10
 179       11       3072 mmcblk0p11
 179       12     819200 mmcblk0p12 system
 179       13    6459375 mmcblk0p13 userdata
 179       14      20480 mmcblk0p14
 179       15     184320 mmcblk0p15
 179       16      10240 mmcblk0p16
 179       17       1024 mmcblk0p17
 179       18      10240 mmcblk0p18
 179       19       3072 mmcblk0p19
 179       20      10240 mmcblk0p20
 179       21       4096 mmcblk0p21
 179       22       4096 mmcblk0p22
 179       23          8 mmcblk0p23
 179       24       4071 mmcblk0p24

2  qualcomm kernel dump panic information

2.1 using linux-ramdump-parser-v2.2013JAN15

# python ramparse.py  --vmlinux  .../obj/KERNEL_OBJ/vmlinux  --auto-dump ../dump/to_dump_files/  --everything

3  notes for using container_of and adding devices' attribution

static DEVICE_ATTR(name4userspace, S_IRUGO | S_IWUSR | S_IWGRP, // 644
	read_name_of_a_device, write_a_function);


static struct attribute *fs_attrs[] = {
	&dev_attr_name4userspace.attr,
	NULL,
}

static struct attribute_group fs_attr_group = {
	.attrs = fs_attrs,
};

rc = sysfs_create_group(&mfd->fbi->dev->kobj, &fs_attr_group);

Remember the following rules for using the function of container_of

container_of(pointer, container's type, container's member);

The above macro needs a pointer which points to container's member which is in the corresponding structure including container's type.

/**
 * container_of - cast a member of a structure out to the containing structure
 * @ptr:	the pointer to the member.
 * @type:	the type of the container struct this is embedded in.
 * @member:	the name of the member within the struct.
 *
 */
#define container_of(ptr, type, member) ({			\
	const typeof( ((type *)0)->member ) *__mptr = (ptr);	\
	(type *)( (char *)__mptr - offsetof(type,member) );})

static ssize_t read_name_of_some_device(struct device *dev,
		struct device_attribute *attr, char *buf)
{
	int id, len;
	char *name;
//	struct platform_device *pdev;
//	pdev = container_of(dev, struct platform_device, dev); // the device must be exactly in platform_device!!
//	mfd = platform_get_drvdata(pdev); // get private data
	struct msm_fb_data_type *mfd;
	struct fb_info *fbi = dev_get_drvdata(dev); // get private data

	mfd = (struct msm_fb_data_type *) fbi->par; // get mfd
	id = id; // some devices' id
	name = "a device's name";
	len = strlen(name) + 1;
	strncpy(buf, name, len); // Or use the function of snprintf

	return len; // returned value should have length, otherwise the command "cat" can't read the file
}

4  The single module compilation for android 4.2.2

first look up the Android.mk to get module name.

# make hwcomposer.msm8930