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    c39ab6de
    coredump: Document coredump code exclusively used by cell spufs · c39ab6de
    Eric W. Biederman authored
    Oleg Nesterov recently asked[1] why is there an unshare_files in
    do_coredump.  After digging through all of the callers of lookup_fd it
    turns out that it is
    arch/powerpc/platforms/cell/spufs/coredump.c:coredump_next_context
    that needs the unshare_files in do_coredump.
    
    Looking at the history[2] this code was also the only piece of coredump code
    that required the unshare_files when the unshare_files was added.
    
    Looking at that code it turns out that cell is also the only
    architecture that implements elf_coredump_extra_notes_size and
    elf_coredump_extra_notes_write.
    
    I looked at the gdb repo[3] support for cell has been removed[4] in binutils
    2.34.  Geoff Levand reports he is still getting questions on how to
    run modern kernels on the PS3, from people using 3rd party firmware so
    this code is not dead.  According to Wikipedia the last PS3 shipped in
    Japan sometime in 2017.  So it will probably be a little while before
    everyone's hardware dies.
    
    Add some comments briefly documenting the coredump code that exists
    only to support cell spufs to make it easier to understand the
    coredump code.  Eventually the hardware will be dead, or their won't
    be userspace tools, or the coredump code will be refactored and it
    will be too difficult to update a dead architecture and these comments
    make it easy to tell where to pull to remove cell spufs support.
    
    [1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20201123175052.GA20279@redhat.com
    [2] 179e037f ("do_coredump(): make sure that descriptor table isn't shared")
    [3] git://sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git
    [4] abf516c6931a ("Remove Cell Broadband Engine debugging support").
    Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/87h7pdnlzv.fsf_-_@x220.int.ebiederm.org
    
    
    Signed-off-by: default avatarEric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
    c39ab6de
    History
    coredump: Document coredump code exclusively used by cell spufs
    Eric W. Biederman authored
    Oleg Nesterov recently asked[1] why is there an unshare_files in
    do_coredump.  After digging through all of the callers of lookup_fd it
    turns out that it is
    arch/powerpc/platforms/cell/spufs/coredump.c:coredump_next_context
    that needs the unshare_files in do_coredump.
    
    Looking at the history[2] this code was also the only piece of coredump code
    that required the unshare_files when the unshare_files was added.
    
    Looking at that code it turns out that cell is also the only
    architecture that implements elf_coredump_extra_notes_size and
    elf_coredump_extra_notes_write.
    
    I looked at the gdb repo[3] support for cell has been removed[4] in binutils
    2.34.  Geoff Levand reports he is still getting questions on how to
    run modern kernels on the PS3, from people using 3rd party firmware so
    this code is not dead.  According to Wikipedia the last PS3 shipped in
    Japan sometime in 2017.  So it will probably be a little while before
    everyone's hardware dies.
    
    Add some comments briefly documenting the coredump code that exists
    only to support cell spufs to make it easier to understand the
    coredump code.  Eventually the hardware will be dead, or their won't
    be userspace tools, or the coredump code will be refactored and it
    will be too difficult to update a dead architecture and these comments
    make it easy to tell where to pull to remove cell spufs support.
    
    [1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20201123175052.GA20279@redhat.com
    [2] 179e037f ("do_coredump(): make sure that descriptor table isn't shared")
    [3] git://sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git
    [4] abf516c6931a ("Remove Cell Broadband Engine debugging support").
    Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/87h7pdnlzv.fsf_-_@x220.int.ebiederm.org
    
    
    Signed-off-by: default avatarEric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>