tree 563a015fdbfb3907cb658ab12971850acb99f57e
parent eae3e19ca930a56c726fbf4dc3adc198b8f5d61d
author Douglas Anderson <dianders@chromium.org> 1588882126 -0700
committer Daniel Thompson <daniel.thompson@linaro.org> 1589820567 +0100

kgdboc: Add kgdboc_earlycon to support early kgdb using boot consoles

We want to enable kgdb to debug the early parts of the kernel.
Unfortunately kgdb normally is a client of the tty API in the kernel
and serial drivers don't register to the tty layer until fairly late
in the boot process.

Serial drivers do, however, commonly register a boot console.  Let's
enable the kgdboc driver to work with boot consoles to provide early
debugging.

This change co-opts the existing read() function pointer that's part
of "struct console".  It's assumed that if a boot console (with the
flag CON_BOOT) has implemented read() that both the read() and write()
function are polling functions.  That means they work without
interrupts and read() will return immediately (with 0 bytes read) if
there's nothing to read.  This should be a safe assumption since it
appears that no current boot consoles implement read() right now and
there seems no reason to do so unless they wanted to support
"kgdboc_earlycon".

The normal/expected way to make all this work is to use
"kgdboc_earlycon" and "kgdboc" together.  You should point them both
to the same physical serial connection.  At boot time, as the system
transitions from the boot console to the normal console (and registers
a tty), kgdb will switch over.

One awkward part of all this, though, is that there can be a window
where the boot console goes away and we can't quite transtion over to
the main kgdboc that uses the tty layer.  There are two main problems:

1. The act of registering the tty doesn't cause any call into kgdboc
   so there is a window of time when the tty is there but kgdboc's
   init code hasn't been called so we can't transition to it.

2. On some serial drivers the normal console inits (and replaces the
   boot console) quite early in the system.  Presumably these drivers
   were coded up before earlycon worked as well as it does today and
   probably they don't need to do this anymore, but it causes us
   problems nontheless.

Problem #1 is not too big of a deal somewhat due to the luck of probe
ordering.  kgdboc is last in the tty/serial/Makefile so its probe gets
right after all other tty devices.  It's not fun to rely on this, but
it does work for the most part.

Problem #2 is a big deal, but only for some serial drivers.  Other
serial drivers end up registering the console (which gets rid of the
boot console) and tty at nearly the same time.

The way we'll deal with the window when the system has stopped using
the boot console and the time when we're setup using the tty is to
keep using the boot console.  This may sound surprising, but it has
been found to work well in practice.  If it doesn't work, it shouldn't
be too hard for a given serial driver to make it keep working.
Specifically, it's expected that the read()/write() function provided
in the boot console should be the same (or nearly the same) as the
normal kgdb polling functions.  That means continuing to use them
should work just fine.  To make things even more likely to work work
we'll also trap the recently added exit() function in the boot console
we're using and delay any calls to it until we're all done with the
boot console.

NOTE: there could be ways to use all this in weird / unexpected ways.
If you do something like this, it's a bit of a buyer beware situation.
Specifically:
- If you specify only "kgdboc_earlycon" but not "kgdboc" then
  (depending on your serial driver) things will probably work OK, but
  you'll get a warning printed the first time you use kgdb after the
  boot console is gone.  You'd only be able to do this, of course, if
  the serial driver you're running atop provided an early boot console.
- If your "kgdboc_earlycon" and "kgdboc" devices are not the same
  device things should work OK, but it'll be your job to switch over
  which device you're monitoring (including figuring out how to switch
  over gdb in-flight if you're using it).

When trying to enable "kgdboc_earlycon" it should be noted that the
names that are registered through the boot console layer and the tty
layer are not the same for the same port.  For example when debugging
on one board I'd need to pass "kgdboc_earlycon=qcom_geni
kgdboc=ttyMSM0" to enable things properly.  Since digging up the boot
console name is a pain and there will rarely be more than one boot
console enabled, you can provide the "kgdboc_earlycon" parameter
without specifying the name of the boot console.  In this case we'll
just pick the first boot that implements read() that we find.

This new "kgdboc_earlycon" parameter should be contrasted to the
existing "ekgdboc" parameter.  While both provide a way to debug very
early, the usage and mechanisms are quite different.  Specifically
"kgdboc_earlycon" is meant to be used in tandem with "kgdboc" and
there is a transition from one to the other.  The "ekgdboc" parameter,
on the other hand, replaces the "kgdboc" parameter.  It runs the same
logic as the "kgdboc" parameter but just relies on your TTY driver
being present super early.  The only known usage of the old "ekgdboc"
parameter is documented as "ekgdboc=kbd earlyprintk=vga".  It should
be noted that "kbd" has special treatment allowing it to init early as
a tty device.

Signed-off-by: Douglas Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>
Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Tested-by: Sumit Garg <sumit.garg@linaro.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200507130644.v4.8.I8fba5961bf452ab92350654aa61957f23ecf0100@changeid
Signed-off-by: Daniel Thompson <daniel.thompson@linaro.org>