Memory needed for a kdump kernel has been bloated

[Bernhard Walle]

* Jay Lan <jlan at sgi.com> [2008-08-21 14:00]:
>
> Bernhard Walle wrote:
> > * Jay Lan <jlan at sgi.com> [2008-08-21 13:35]:
> >> 2) the kdump kernel tried to add disk /dev/sdb when it is not even
> >>    in /etc/fstab. I think only the system disk and the disk where
> >>    we want to save the vmcore to should be needed.
> > 
> > But what has that to do with the kernel? What do you mean with "add
> > disk"? Mount? Load driver? That's up to initrd and/or system
> > configuration ...
> 
> Hmm, it would be great if there is a way we can initialize only the
> needed disk. "add_disk" was called from sd_probe:
>    add_disk <-
>      sd_probe <-
>      driver_probe_device <-
>      __device_attach <-
>      bus_for_each_drv <-
>      ...
> 
> So the solution might need come from initrd or a device driver? Maybe
> we can use a new system configuration item. But it can save a lot of
> memory if we do not need to initialize those devices.

Hm ..., I guess all disks share the same driver in your setup. I think
that's not possible with current infrastructure ... but maybe someone
has an idea.

But in general I like the idea. That would also help on other
platforms with a huge amount of disks. :-)



Bernhard
-- 
Bernhard Walle, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Architecture Development

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
        -- Albert Einstein