Re: [PATCH 2/2] allow printk delay after multi lines

From: Andrew Morton
Date: Mon Feb 08 2010 - 16:57:14 EST


On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 21:40:56 +0800
Dave Young <hidave.darkstar@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> printk delay help us to capture printk messages on some unconvenient senarios,
> but it is still not easy to read.
>
> Add another sysctl variable printk_delay_per_lines to make it more readable.
> We can set the lines according to screen height, then take pictures by camera.
>
> kmesg will delay printk_delay_per_lines * printk_delay_msecs milliseconds
> after every printk_delay_per_lines lines when printk_delay is enabled.
>
> Setting the lines by proc/sysctl interface:
> /proc/sys/kernel/printk_delay_per_lines
>
> Andrew, sorry, I have not find time to cleanup the kernel.h sysctl variables.
> If I'm free I will try to do it.
>
> The value range from 1 - 100, default value is 1
>
> ...
>
> --- linux-2.6.orig/include/linux/kernel.h 2010-02-02 13:38:09.537495564 +0800
> +++ linux-2.6/include/linux/kernel.h 2010-02-02 13:40:47.657480122 +0800
> @@ -246,6 +246,7 @@ extern bool printk_timed_ratelimit(unsig
> unsigned int interval_msec);
>
> extern int printk_delay_msec;
> +extern int printk_delay_per_lines;
>
> /*
> * Print a one-time message (analogous to WARN_ONCE() et al):
> --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/printk.c 2010-02-02 13:39:19.446657319 +0800
> +++ linux-2.6/kernel/printk.c 2010-02-02 13:40:47.660813615 +0800
> @@ -656,16 +656,26 @@ static int new_text_line = 1;
> static char printk_buf[1024];
>
> int printk_delay_msec __read_mostly;
> +int printk_delay_per_lines __read_mostly;
>
> static inline void printk_delay(void)
> {
> if (unlikely(printk_delay_msec)) {
> - int m = printk_delay_msec;
> + static int m, l;
>
> + if (!l)
> + l = printk_delay_per_lines;
> +
> + if (--l) {
> + m += printk_delay_msec;
> + return;
> + }
> + m += printk_delay_msec;
> while (m--) {
> mdelay(1);
> touch_nmi_watchdog();
> }
> + m = 0;
> }
> }

- The default value is zero, not 1. And zero will be treated as 4G.
That's a bug.

- This feature would be a lot more useful if the user could specify
printk_delay_per_lines on the boot command line. Ditto
printk_delay_msec. So you can stop the important mesages from
scrolling off. (I think there's already a way to do that, but I'm
too lazy to go remember what it was).

- The permitted range of 1-100 for printk_delay_per_lines seems
arbitrary and unneeded. Why shouldn't I be able to set it to 10,000?
I see no harm in permitting that.

- If the user sets printk_delay_per_lines=N, the kernel will pause
for N*printk_delay_msec every N lines. This is odd, and unintuitive.
And it'll really hurt if I set printk_delay_per_lines=10000!

I'd expect the kernel to pause for printk_delay_msec every N lines,
and I think that would be better.


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