Re: [2.6.27.24] Kernel coredump to a pipe is failing

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Wed, 27 May 2009 01:41:09 +0200
Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org> wrote:

> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 04:28:21PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Wed, 27 May 2009 01:14:28 +0200
> > Andi Kleen <andi@firstfloor.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 04:00:17PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > > > dump_write() doesn't seem right, either.  If ->write() returns, say,
> > > > 100 then the dump should keep on going.  At present it treats this
> > > > return as an error.
> > > 
> > > I think that's correct actually. Short write typically means serious 
> > > issue like disk full or broken pipe, so stopping is good.
> > 
> > But we shouldn't assume that.  It could be that the ->write
> > implementation is perfectly able to absorb the remaining data.
> 
> Maybe in theory, but in practice that's unlikely isn't it?

I dunno.  Is this true of all linux filesystems in all cases?  Maybe.

> Disk is full or pipe is blocking etc.
> 
> > We should only error out of the write() returned zero or -EFOO.
> > The current code is simply buggy, but got lucky.
> 
> Maybe very pedantically, but I would argue that most programs 
> don't do what you're saying (retry on any short write) and
> it's actually not very nice to always write a loop for each write.
> 
> Also any IO device who relies on that would likely find
> that it won't work with a lot of software.
> 
> So I think the current behaviour is ok, just need to get 
> rid of the signals.

It's buggy!