From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 26 05:16:22 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDB72106564A for ; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:16:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanefbsd@gmail.com) Received: from mail-px0-f195.google.com (mail-px0-f195.google.com [209.85.216.195]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B964B8FC0A for ; Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:16:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: by pxi33 with SMTP id 33so1175386pxi.14 for ; Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:16:16 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:date:message-id:subject :from:to:content-type; bh=0unmf2CGxkWOWpwq2RUpUqhuySvKyhCA21I561QeAYY=; b=Gmp/F0+LcAnCK4xWPwwmzdqAFz8lKSQ5kQXO85ClflZiwv0IUyniOL2s8oXdIx/t9B JFgmT2EJpYPa7JDnSjhrEGTCnygWEg9LIdmi466igc5Hit8gZilYhlUbSartrWbJRMmb D7wHbbsHOTjBaS0sxSTMWa3BDKIDIteMhC2/8= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; b=INiQqBu25xI7clRHPzBvyV6GcE/mIr1lfmaYAFYSc4nwoe31HloJ7FY6Ym2ypJljdV 3ehFsAhZn5lAXCnwRwWZzDqQPg9NNjxAjd83RoezhFzRElc2r93/WSf8i75E23OBsVef R7TkFCOU+2NPUdmGEYR6fYGUadDNG84xT58vU= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.142.6.32 with SMTP id 32mr496985wff.6.1267161376182; Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:16:16 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:16:16 -0800 Message-ID: <7d6fde3d1002252116k55a8e350s5dcc0846cba07785@mail.gmail.com> From: Garrett Cooper To: FreeBSD-Hackers Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: ddb and dump devices X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:16:22 -0000 Hi again Hackers, Another question that popped up recently in my mind given some of the stability issues with RAID controllers is: what happens when you can't dump to a RAID or non-RAIDed PATA/SATA device? In particular, does it make sense to have the functionality where one could make the dump/panic operation fault resistant where the person could get a `freebie' and use an alternate device, like USB thumbdrives, tapedrives (not saying that'd be smart), or a network device to dump the data? I realize that not all cases are recoverable and there will be some coverage gaps still, but it'd be nice if we could fill in the gaps that do exist when stuff goes horribly south. This functionality would be helpful for my company at least (Ironport) as disk RAIDs sometimes fail and we don't have a means of writing back data, and we don't always have serial connectivity on our appliances and our customers typically don't in the field, s.t. we can use kgdb on the machine and get more useful tracebacks from panic conditions. Please let me know what you think and whether or not this is a worthwhile endeavor. Thanks! -Garrett