Add a sysctl which asks the kernel to panic when any userspace process receives a fatal signal which would trigger a core dump. This has proven to be quite useful when debugging problems seen during testing of embedded systems: When combined with kernel core dumps (saved due to the panic), it allows easier debugging of crashes which have their origin in system-wide problems such as buggy drivers or other kernel or hardware-related issues.
The crashing process's core dump can be extracted from the kernel core dump using tools such as the crash utility's gcore extension. Signed-off-by: Vincent Whitchurch <vincent.whitchu...@axis.com> --- include/linux/signal.h | 1 + kernel/signal.c | 5 ++++- kernel/sysctl.c | 7 +++++++ 3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/include/linux/signal.h b/include/linux/signal.h index cc7e2c1cd444..109efd1432e9 100644 --- a/include/linux/signal.h +++ b/include/linux/signal.h @@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ struct task_struct; /* for sysctl */ extern int print_fatal_signals; +extern int panic_fatal_signals; static inline void copy_siginfo(kernel_siginfo_t *to, const kernel_siginfo_t *from) diff --git a/kernel/signal.c b/kernel/signal.c index e1d7ad8e6ab1..83c6877b0182 100644 --- a/kernel/signal.c +++ b/kernel/signal.c @@ -59,6 +59,7 @@ static struct kmem_cache *sigqueue_cachep; int print_fatal_signals __read_mostly; +int panic_fatal_signals __read_mostly; static void __user *sig_handler(struct task_struct *t, int sig) { @@ -2497,8 +2498,10 @@ bool get_signal(struct ksignal *ksig) current->flags |= PF_SIGNALED; if (sig_kernel_coredump(signr)) { - if (print_fatal_signals) + if (print_fatal_signals || panic_fatal_signals) print_fatal_signal(ksig->info.si_signo); + if (panic_fatal_signals) + panic("Fatal signal and panic_fatal_signals=1"); proc_coredump_connector(current); /* * If it was able to dump core, this kills all diff --git a/kernel/sysctl.c b/kernel/sysctl.c index ba4d9e85feb8..ad1ac6ec2004 100644 --- a/kernel/sysctl.c +++ b/kernel/sysctl.c @@ -557,6 +557,13 @@ static struct ctl_table kern_table[] = { .mode = 0644, .proc_handler = proc_dointvec, }, + { + .procname = "panic-fatal-signals", + .data = &panic_fatal_signals, + .maxlen = sizeof(int), + .mode = 0644, + .proc_handler = proc_dointvec, + }, #ifdef CONFIG_SPARC { .procname = "reboot-cmd", -- 2.20.0