From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 5 21:37:46 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8B90FCDC; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 21:37:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from thebighonker.lerctr.org (thebighonker.lerctr.org [IPv6:2001:470:1f0f:3ad:223:7dff:fe9e:6e8a]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "thebighonker.lerctr.org", Issuer "COMODO RSA Domain Validation Secure Server CA" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5A1E5114B; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 21:37:46 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=lerctr.org; s=lerami; h=Message-ID:References:In-Reply-To:Subject:Cc:To:From:Date:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Type:MIME-Version; bh=nwXOFrWWUaDFt1qvPHPf6eUtkbsryicQhDquLP5k858=; b=n4u+CoyJUK3nW1KOVj3hn6tjLN1tAGJcAfPlQAlDgzF4JdOvYtieiDI6zT8+co0tOkm7sQp7yfdS34Ty7FFqswUKsqTChdUwaYTGeiHgoSWY7eywxqx7mpmgFGCdQYghPme+tywxWIHLEZP/6gtCnGLE5ZOPfYEBanQ6xKkqJsQ=; Received: from localhost.lerctr.org ([127.0.0.1]:25802 helo=webmail.lerctr.org) by thebighonker.lerctr.org with esmtpsa (TLSv1:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.84 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1XQ1CR-0000gE-Db; Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:37:45 -0500 Received: from host.alcatel.com ([198.205.55.139]) by webmail.lerctr.org with HTTP (HTTP/1.1 POST); Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:37:43 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:37:43 -0500 From: Larry Rosenman To: John Baldwin Subject: Re: =?UTF-8?Q?ddb=5Fenable=3D=22YES=22=20by=20default=3F?= In-Reply-To: <201409051735.49577.jhb@freebsd.org> References: <1690616.oBzWaFvmny@overcee.wemm.org> <201409051735.49577.jhb@freebsd.org> Message-ID: <9f73359eec9d0fa7cd7f872616586ea6@thebighonker.lerctr.org> X-Sender: ler@lerctr.org User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/1.0.2 X-Spam-Score: -4.6 (----) X-LERCTR-Spam-Score: -4.6 (----) X-Spam-Report: SpamScore (-4.6/5.0) ALL_TRUSTED=-1, BAYES_00=-1.9, RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-1.717 X-LERCTR-Spam-Report: SpamScore (-4.6/5.0) ALL_TRUSTED=-1, BAYES_00=-1.9, RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-1.717 Cc: Craig Rodrigues , freebsd-current@freebsd.org, Brooks Davis , Peter Wemm , owner-freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 21:37:46 -0000 On 2014-09-05 16:35, John Baldwin wrote: > On Friday, September 05, 2014 5:08:07 pm Peter Wemm wrote: >> On Friday 05 September 2014 13:51:24 Craig Rodrigues wrote: >> > On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 7:54 AM, John Baldwin wrote: >> > > Probably at least 50% of the time when I work with a user on a bug report, >> > > I ask them to go into kgdb and run specific commands to extract more >> > > detailed info (print some struct, etc.). >> > >> > Sure, I understand, but you are not working with every user who >> > encounters a kernel panic in FreeBSD. For the average or casual >> > FreeBSD user, such as desktop >> > users of FreeBSD or PC-BSD, wouldn't it be better >> > to have ddb_enable="YES" be the default in FreeBSD? The ddb script >> > there does a fairly reasonable >> > job of gathering some useful info which can be analyzed later, and >> > then rebooting the box. >> > >> > For more expert users, or people developing products, they can set >> > ddb_enable="NO" >> > and do more advanced debugging. Or hook into /etc/rc.d/ddb and define >> > a different >> > ddb script which doesn't do textdumps on kernel panic. >> >> I think what John was saying was at that point it's too late. The >> loss of the >> crash dump means the one shot at getting more information is gone. >> >> For reproducable crashes, yes, an end user could just flip the bit. >> But for a >> one-off, it's too late. > > Also, crashinfo is already enabled by default. If a user enables crash > dumps > in the installer, they will have a nice /var/crash/core.txt.N that they > can > post to the mailing lists just as easily as the text dump you envision. > And in > fact, I've seen our users already doing this. (Have you looked at a > /var/crash/core.txt.N file yet?) I've in fact done just that (posted the top part of a core.txt.N file, and gotten VERY good results from the list(s)..... -- Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler Phone: +1 214-642-9640 (c) E-Mail: ler@lerctr.org US Mail: 108 Turvey Cove, Hutto, TX 78634-5688