NetBSD Problem Report #25860

Received: (qmail 1266 invoked by uid 605); 7 Jun 2004 15:25:04 -0000
Message-Id: <20040607152500.C0ED811152@narn.netbsd.org>
Date: Mon,  7 Jun 2004 15:25:00 +0000 (UTC)
From: Ross.Patterson@CatchFS.Com
Sender: gnats-bugs-owner@NetBSD.org
Reply-To: Ross.Patterson@CatchFS.Com
To: gnats-bugs@gnats.NetBSD.org
Subject: MSGBUFSIZE > 512K generates many bytes of 0xff in message buffer
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>Number:         25860
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       MSGBUFSIZE > 512K generates many bytes of 0xff in message buffer
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    kern-bug-people
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Jun 07 15:26:00 +0000 2004
>Closed-Date:    
>Last-Modified:  
>Originator:     Ross Patterson
>Release:        1.6
>Organization:
CatchFIRE Systems, Inc
>Environment:
NetBSD devo.rap.catchfs.com 1.6 NetBSD 1.6 (GENERIC) #0: Sun Sep  8 19:43:40 UTC 2002     autobuild@tgm.daemon.org:/autobuild/i386/OBJ/autobuild/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC i386
>Description:
If you configure and build a kernel with MSGBUFSIZE larger than 512KB, the kernel only appears to use the first 512KB.  That's bad, but not too bad.  Unfortunately, /dev/klog and the KERN_MSGBUF sysctl retrieve the entire buffer.  The unused bytes are delivered as gigantic runs of 0xff. 

NetBSD 1.6 exhibits the problem, 1.5 does not.

There doesn't seem to be a documented limit to MSGBUFSIZE ("man 4 optoins" doesn't list one, nor do any .h files we've checked).  I've built kernels with up to 2MB reserved for the buffer (for intensive kernel debugging), and everything is fine except that the kernel won't use more than 512KB.

I suspect there's something implicit in Intel x86 memory segmenting, but  I can't glean enough information from  kern/subr_log.c, arch/i386/i386/machdep.c and arch/i386/i386/pmap.c to be certain.
>How-To-Repeat:
Build a kernel with 

options                MSGBUFSIZE="(2*1024*1024)"

Boot, gernerate a lot of kernel printf's and then "dmesg" or list peruse /var/log/messages.
>Fix:

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:

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