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David Howells 36c9559022 FS-Cache: Object management state machine 
Implement the cache object management state machine.

The following documentation is added to illuminate the working of this state
machine.  It will also be added as:

	Documentation/filesystems/caching/object.txt

	     ====================================================
	     IN-KERNEL CACHE OBJECT REPRESENTATION AND MANAGEMENT
	     ====================================================

==============
REPRESENTATION
==============

FS-Cache maintains an in-kernel representation of each object that a netfs is
currently interested in.  Such objects are represented by the fscache_cookie
struct and are referred to as cookies.

FS-Cache also maintains a separate in-kernel representation of the objects that
a cache backend is currently actively caching.  Such objects are represented by
the fscache_object struct.  The cache backends allocate these upon request, and
are expected to embed them in their own representations.  These are referred to
as objects.

There is a 1:N relationship between cookies and objects.  A cookie may be
represented by multiple objects - an index may exist in more than one cache -
or even by no objects (it may not be cached).

Furthermore, both cookies and objects are hierarchical.  The two hierarchies
correspond, but the cookies tree is a superset of the union of the object trees
of multiple caches:

	    NETFS INDEX TREE               :      CACHE 1     :      CACHE 2
	                                   :                  :
	                                   :   +-----------+  :
	                          +----------->|  IObject  |  :
	      +-----------+       |        :   +-----------+  :
	      |  ICookie  |-------+        :         |        :
	      +-----------+       |        :         |        :   +-----------+
	            |             +------------------------------>|  IObject  |
	            |                      :         |        :   +-----------+
	            |                      :         V        :         |
	            |                      :   +-----------+  :         |
	            V             +----------->|  IObject  |  :         |
	      +-----------+       |        :   +-----------+  :         |
	      |  ICookie  |-------+        :         |        :         V
	      +-----------+       |        :         |        :   +-----------+
	            |             +------------------------------>|  IObject  |
	      +-----+-----+                :         |        :   +-----------+
	      |           |                :         |        :         |
	      V           |                :         V        :         |
	+-----------+     |                :   +-----------+  :         |
	|  ICookie  |------------------------->|  IObject  |  :         |
	+-----------+     |                :   +-----------+  :         |
	      |           V                :         |        :         V
	      |     +-----------+          :         |        :   +-----------+
	      |     |  ICookie  |-------------------------------->|  IObject  |
	      |     +-----------+          :         |        :   +-----------+
	      V           |                :         V        :         |
	+-----------+     |                :   +-----------+  :         |
	|  DCookie  |------------------------->|  DObject  |  :         |
	+-----------+     |                :   +-----------+  :         |
	                  |                :                  :         |
	          +-------+-------+        :                  :         |
	          |               |        :                  :         |
	          V               V        :                  :         V
	    +-----------+   +-----------+  :                  :   +-----------+
	    |  DCookie  |   |  DCookie  |------------------------>|  DObject  |
	    +-----------+   +-----------+  :                  :   +-----------+
	                                   :                  :

In the above illustration, ICookie and IObject represent indices and DCookie
and DObject represent data storage objects.  Indices may have representation in
multiple caches, but currently, non-index objects may not.  Objects of any type
may also be entirely unrepresented.

As far as the netfs API goes, the netfs is only actually permitted to see
pointers to the cookies.  The cookies themselves and any objects attached to
those cookies are hidden from it.

===============================
OBJECT MANAGEMENT STATE MACHINE
===============================

Within FS-Cache, each active object is managed by its own individual state
machine.  The state for an object is kept in the fscache_object struct, in
object->state.  A cookie may point to a set of objects that are in different
states.

Each state has an action associated with it that is invoked when the machine
wakes up in that state.  There are four logical sets of states:

 (1) Preparation: states that wait for the parent objects to become ready.  The
     representations are hierarchical, and it is expected that an object must
     be created or accessed with respect to its parent object.

 (2) Initialisation: states that perform lookups in the cache and validate
     what's found and that create on disk any missing metadata.

 (3) Normal running: states that allow netfs operations on objects to proceed
     and that update the state of objects.

 (4) Termination: states that detach objects from their netfs cookies, that
     delete objects from disk, that handle disk and system errors and that free
     up in-memory resources.

In most cases, transitioning between states is in response to signalled events.
When a state has finished processing, it will usually set the mask of events in
which it is interested (object->event_mask) and relinquish the worker thread.
Then when an event is raised (by calling fscache_raise_event()), if the event
is not masked, the object will be queued for processing (by calling
fscache_enqueue_object()).

PROVISION OF CPU TIME
---------------------

The work to be done by the various states is given CPU time by the threads of
the slow work facility (see Documentation/slow-work.txt).  This is used in
preference to the workqueue facility because:

 (1) Threads may be completely occupied for very long periods of time by a
     particular work item.  These state actions may be doing sequences of
     synchronous, journalled disk accesses (lookup, mkdir, create, setxattr,
     getxattr, truncate, unlink, rmdir, rename).

 (2) Threads may do little actual work, but may rather spend a lot of time
     sleeping on I/O.  This means that single-threaded and 1-per-CPU-threaded
     workqueues don't necessarily have the right numbers of threads.

LOCKING SIMPLIFICATION
----------------------

Because only one worker thread may be operating on any particular object's
state machine at once, this simplifies the locking, particularly with respect
to disconnecting the netfs's representation of a cache object (fscache_cookie)
from the cache backend's representation (fscache_object) - which may be
requested from either end.

=================
THE SET OF STATES
=================

The object state machine has a set of states that it can be in.  There are
preparation states in which the object sets itself up and waits for its parent
object to transit to a state that allows access to its children:

 (1) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_INIT.

     Initialise the object and wait for the parent object to become active.  In
     the cache, it is expected that it will not be possible to look an object
     up from the parent object, until that parent object itself has been looked
     up.

There are initialisation states in which the object sets itself up and accesses
disk for the object metadata:

 (2) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_LOOKING_UP.

     Look up the object on disk, using the parent as a starting point.
     FS-Cache expects the cache backend to probe the cache to see whether this
     object is represented there, and if it is, to see if it's valid (coherency
     management).

     The cache should call fscache_object_lookup_negative() to indicate lookup
     failure for whatever reason, and should call fscache_obtained_object() to
     indicate success.

     At the completion of lookup, FS-Cache will let the netfs go ahead with
     read operations, no matter whether the file is yet cached.  If not yet
     cached, read operations will be immediately rejected with ENODATA until
     the first known page is uncached - as to that point there can be no data
     to be read out of the cache for that file that isn't currently also held
     in the pagecache.

 (3) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_CREATING.

     Create an object on disk, using the parent as a starting point.  This
     happens if the lookup failed to find the object, or if the object's
     coherency data indicated what's on disk is out of date.  In this state,
     FS-Cache expects the cache to create

     The cache should call fscache_obtained_object() if creation completes
     successfully, fscache_object_lookup_negative() otherwise.

     At the completion of creation, FS-Cache will start processing write
     operations the netfs has queued for an object.  If creation failed, the
     write ops will be transparently discarded, and nothing recorded in the
     cache.

There are some normal running states in which the object spends its time
servicing netfs requests:

 (4) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_AVAILABLE.

     A transient state in which pending operations are started, child objects
     are permitted to advance from FSCACHE_OBJECT_INIT state, and temporary
     lookup data is freed.

 (5) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_ACTIVE.

     The normal running state.  In this state, requests the netfs makes will be
     passed on to the cache.

 (6) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_UPDATING.

     The state machine comes here to update the object in the cache from the
     netfs's records.  This involves updating the auxiliary data that is used
     to maintain coherency.

And there are terminal states in which an object cleans itself up, deallocates
memory and potentially deletes stuff from disk:

 (7) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_LC_DYING.

     The object comes here if it is dying because of a lookup or creation
     error.  This would be due to a disk error or system error of some sort.
     Temporary data is cleaned up, and the parent is released.

 (8) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_DYING.

     The object comes here if it is dying due to an error, because its parent
     cookie has been relinquished by the netfs or because the cache is being
     withdrawn.

     Any child objects waiting on this one are given CPU time so that they too
     can destroy themselves.  This object waits for all its children to go away
     before advancing to the next state.

 (9) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_ABORT_INIT.

     The object comes to this state if it was waiting on its parent in
     FSCACHE_OBJECT_INIT, but its parent died.  The object will destroy itself
     so that the parent may proceed from the FSCACHE_OBJECT_DYING state.

(10) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_RELEASING.
(11) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_RECYCLING.

     The object comes to one of these two states when dying once it is rid of
     all its children, if it is dying because the netfs relinquished its
     cookie.  In the first state, the cached data is expected to persist, and
     in the second it will be deleted.

(12) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_WITHDRAWING.

     The object transits to this state if the cache decides it wants to
     withdraw the object from service, perhaps to make space, but also due to
     error or just because the whole cache is being withdrawn.

(13) State FSCACHE_OBJECT_DEAD.

     The object transits to this state when the in-memory object record is
     ready to be deleted.  The object processor shouldn't ever see an object in
     this state.

THE SET OF EVENTS
-----------------

There are a number of events that can be raised to an object state machine:

 (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_UPDATE

     The netfs requested that an object be updated.  The state machine will ask
     the cache backend to update the object, and the cache backend will ask the
     netfs for details of the change through its cookie definition ops.

 (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_CLEARED

     This is signalled in two circumstances:

     (a) when an object's last child object is dropped and

     (b) when the last operation outstanding on an object is completed.

     This is used to proceed from the dying state.

 (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_ERROR

     This is signalled when an I/O error occurs during the processing of some
     object.

 (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_RELEASE
 (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_RETIRE

     These are signalled when the netfs relinquishes a cookie it was using.
     The event selected depends on whether the netfs asks for the backing
     object to be retired (deleted) or retained.

 (*) FSCACHE_OBJECT_EV_WITHDRAW

     This is signalled when the cache backend wants to withdraw an object.
     This means that the object will have to be detached from the netfs's
     cookie.

Because the withdrawing releasing/retiring events are all handled by the object
state machine, it doesn't matter if there's a collision with both ends trying
to sever the connection at the same time.  The state machine can just pick
which one it wants to honour, and that effects the other.

Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Steve Dickson <steved@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Acked-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Tested-by: Daire Byrne <Daire.Byrne@framestore.com>
2009-04-03 16:42:38 +01:00
arch Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6 2009-04-02 21:09:10 -07:00
block Merge branch 'percpu-cpumask-x86-for-linus-2' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip 2009-03-28 13:48:38 -07:00
crypto Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/crypto-2.6 2009-03-26 11:04:34 -07:00
Documentation FS-Cache: Object management state machine 2009-04-03 16:42:38 +01:00
drivers Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6 2009-04-02 21:09:10 -07:00
firmware smc91c92_cs: use request_firmware 2009-03-30 20:25:13 +05:30
fs FS-Cache: Object management state machine 2009-04-03 16:42:38 +01:00
include FS-Cache: Add netfs registration 2009-04-03 16:42:38 +01:00
init Create a dynamically sized pool of threads for doing very slow work items 2009-04-03 16:42:35 +01:00
ipc Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6 2009-04-02 21:09:10 -07:00
kernel Document the slow work thread pool 2009-04-03 16:42:35 +01:00
lib cpumask: fix slab corruption caused by alloc_cpumask_var_node() 2009-04-02 19:05:11 -07:00
mm FS-Cache: Recruit a page flags for cache management 2009-04-03 16:42:36 +01:00
net Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6 2009-04-02 21:09:10 -07:00
samples samples: mark {static|__init|__exit} for {init|exit} functions 2009-01-06 15:59:12 -08:00
scripts Merge branch 'core/percpu' into percpu-cpumask-x86-for-linus-2 2009-03-27 17:28:43 +01:00
security Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs-2.6 2009-04-02 21:09:10 -07:00
sound proc 2/2: remove struct proc_dir_entry::owner 2009-03-31 01:14:44 +04:00
usr bzip2/lzma: don't ask for compression mode for the default initramfs 2009-03-28 17:27:15 -07:00
virt/kvm KVM: Get support IRQ routing entry counts 2009-03-24 11:03:14 +02:00
.gitignore Fix and clean top .gitignore 2008-06-29 12:18:00 -07:00
.mailmap Add Sascha Hauer to .mailmap 2009-02-06 08:47:25 -08:00
COPYING
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: move old ide-{floppy,tape} entries to CREDITS (take 2) 2009-03-31 20:15:31 +02:00
Kbuild kbuild: asm symlink support for arch/$ARCH/include 2008-07-25 22:12:34 +02:00
MAINTAINERS Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-2.6 2009-04-02 21:05:30 -07:00
Makefile Merge branch 'core/percpu' into percpu-cpumask-x86-for-linus-2 2009-03-27 17:28:43 +01:00
README README: fix a wrong filename 2009-02-20 17:57:49 -08:00
REPORTING-BUGS REPORTING-BUGS: cc the mailing list too 2008-02-07 08:42:17 -08:00

README 

	Linux kernel release 2.6.xx <http://kernel.org/>

These are the release notes for Linux version 2.6.  Read them carefully,
as they tell you what this is all about, explain how to install the
kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong. 

WHAT IS LINUX?

  Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by
  Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across
  the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

  It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix,
  including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand
  loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory management,
  and multistack networking including IPv4 and IPv6.

  It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
  accompanying COPYING file for more details. 

ON WHAT HARDWARE DOES IT RUN?

  Although originally developed first for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher),
  today Linux also runs on (at least) the Compaq Alpha AXP, Sun SPARC and
  UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, PowerPC64, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, Cell,
  IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64, DEC VAX, AMD x86-64, AXIS CRIS,
  Xtensa, AVR32 and Renesas M32R architectures.

  Linux is easily portable to most general-purpose 32- or 64-bit architectures
  as long as they have a paged memory management unit (PMMU) and a port of the
  GNU C compiler (gcc) (part of The GNU Compiler Collection, GCC). Linux has
  also been ported to a number of architectures without a PMMU, although
  functionality is then obviously somewhat limited.
  Linux has also been ported to itself. You can now run the kernel as a
  userspace application - this is called UserMode Linux (UML).

DOCUMENTATION:

 - There is a lot of documentation available both in electronic form on
   the Internet and in books, both Linux-specific and pertaining to
   general UNIX questions.  I'd recommend looking into the documentation
   subdirectories on any Linux FTP site for the LDP (Linux Documentation
   Project) books.  This README is not meant to be documentation on the
   system: there are much better sources available.

 - There are various README files in the Documentation/ subdirectory:
   these typically contain kernel-specific installation notes for some 
   drivers for example. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what
   is contained in each file.  Please read the Changes file, as it
   contains information about the problems, which may result by upgrading
   your kernel.

 - The Documentation/DocBook/ subdirectory contains several guides for
   kernel developers and users.  These guides can be rendered in a
   number of formats:  PostScript (.ps), PDF, HTML, & man-pages, among others.
   After installation, "make psdocs", "make pdfdocs", "make htmldocs",
   or "make mandocs" will render the documentation in the requested format.

INSTALLING the kernel source:

 - If you install the full sources, put the kernel tarball in a
   directory where you have permissions (eg. your home directory) and
   unpack it:

		gzip -cd linux-2.6.XX.tar.gz | tar xvf -

   or
		bzip2 -dc linux-2.6.XX.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -


   Replace "XX" with the version number of the latest kernel.

   Do NOT use the /usr/src/linux area! This area has a (usually
   incomplete) set of kernel headers that are used by the library header
   files.  They should match the library, and not get messed up by
   whatever the kernel-du-jour happens to be.

 - You can also upgrade between 2.6.xx releases by patching.  Patches are
   distributed in the traditional gzip and the newer bzip2 format.  To
   install by patching, get all the newer patch files, enter the
   top level directory of the kernel source (linux-2.6.xx) and execute:

		gzip -cd ../patch-2.6.xx.gz | patch -p1

   or
		bzip2 -dc ../patch-2.6.xx.bz2 | patch -p1

   (repeat xx for all versions bigger than the version of your current
   source tree, _in_order_) and you should be ok.  You may want to remove
   the backup files (xxx~ or xxx.orig), and make sure that there are no
   failed patches (xxx# or xxx.rej). If there are, either you or me has
   made a mistake.

   Unlike patches for the 2.6.x kernels, patches for the 2.6.x.y kernels
   (also known as the -stable kernels) are not incremental but instead apply
   directly to the base 2.6.x kernel.  Please read
   Documentation/applying-patches.txt for more information.

   Alternatively, the script patch-kernel can be used to automate this
   process.  It determines the current kernel version and applies any
   patches found.

		linux/scripts/patch-kernel linux

   The first argument in the command above is the location of the
   kernel source.  Patches are applied from the current directory, but
   an alternative directory can be specified as the second argument.

 - If you are upgrading between releases using the stable series patches
   (for example, patch-2.6.xx.y), note that these "dot-releases" are
   not incremental and must be applied to the 2.6.xx base tree. For
   example, if your base kernel is 2.6.12 and you want to apply the
   2.6.12.3 patch, you do not and indeed must not first apply the
   2.6.12.1 and 2.6.12.2 patches. Similarly, if you are running kernel
   version 2.6.12.2 and want to jump to 2.6.12.3, you must first
   reverse the 2.6.12.2 patch (that is, patch -R) _before_ applying
   the 2.6.12.3 patch.
   You can read more on this in Documentation/applying-patches.txt

 - Make sure you have no stale .o files and dependencies lying around:

		cd linux
		make mrproper

   You should now have the sources correctly installed.

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

   Compiling and running the 2.6.xx kernels requires up-to-date
   versions of various software packages.  Consult
   Documentation/Changes for the minimum version numbers required
   and how to get updates for these packages.  Beware that using
   excessively old versions of these packages can cause indirect
   errors that are very difficult to track down, so don't assume that
   you can just update packages when obvious problems arise during
   build or operation.

BUILD directory for the kernel:

   When compiling the kernel all output files will per default be
   stored together with the kernel source code.
   Using the option "make O=output/dir" allow you to specify an alternate
   place for the output files (including .config).
   Example:
     kernel source code:	/usr/src/linux-2.6.N
     build directory:		/home/name/build/kernel

   To configure and build the kernel use:
   cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.N
   make O=/home/name/build/kernel menuconfig
   make O=/home/name/build/kernel
   sudo make O=/home/name/build/kernel modules_install install

   Please note: If the 'O=output/dir' option is used then it must be
   used for all invocations of make.

CONFIGURING the kernel:

   Do not skip this step even if you are only upgrading one minor
   version.  New configuration options are added in each release, and
   odd problems will turn up if the configuration files are not set up
   as expected.  If you want to carry your existing configuration to a
   new version with minimal work, use "make oldconfig", which will
   only ask you for the answers to new questions.

 - Alternate configuration commands are:
	"make config"      Plain text interface.
	"make menuconfig"  Text based color menus, radiolists & dialogs.
	"make xconfig"     X windows (Qt) based configuration tool.
	"make gconfig"     X windows (Gtk) based configuration tool.
	"make oldconfig"   Default all questions based on the contents of
			   your existing ./.config file and asking about
			   new config symbols.
	"make silentoldconfig"
			   Like above, but avoids cluttering the screen
			   with questions already answered.
	"make defconfig"   Create a ./.config file by using the default
			   symbol values from arch/$ARCH/defconfig.
	"make allyesconfig"
			   Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
			   values to 'y' as much as possible.
	"make allmodconfig"
			   Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
			   values to 'm' as much as possible.
	"make allnoconfig" Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
			   values to 'n' as much as possible.
	"make randconfig"  Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
			   values to random values.

   You can find more information on using the Linux kernel config tools
   in Documentation/kbuild/kconfig.txt.

	NOTES on "make config":
	- having unnecessary drivers will make the kernel bigger, and can
	  under some circumstances lead to problems: probing for a
	  nonexistent controller card may confuse your other controllers
	- compiling the kernel with "Processor type" set higher than 386
	  will result in a kernel that does NOT work on a 386.  The
	  kernel will detect this on bootup, and give up.
	- A kernel with math-emulation compiled in will still use the
	  coprocessor if one is present: the math emulation will just
	  never get used in that case.  The kernel will be slightly larger,
	  but will work on different machines regardless of whether they
	  have a math coprocessor or not. 
	- the "kernel hacking" configuration details usually result in a
	  bigger or slower kernel (or both), and can even make the kernel
	  less stable by configuring some routines to actively try to
	  break bad code to find kernel problems (kmalloc()).  Thus you
	  should probably answer 'n' to the questions for
          "development", "experimental", or "debugging" features.

COMPILING the kernel:

 - Make sure you have at least gcc 3.2 available.
   For more information, refer to Documentation/Changes.

   Please note that you can still run a.out user programs with this kernel.

 - Do a "make" to create a compressed kernel image. It is also
   possible to do "make install" if you have lilo installed to suit the
   kernel makefiles, but you may want to check your particular lilo setup first.

   To do the actual install you have to be root, but none of the normal
   build should require that. Don't take the name of root in vain.

 - If you configured any of the parts of the kernel as `modules', you
   will also have to do "make modules_install".

 - Verbose kernel compile/build output:

   Normally the kernel build system runs in a fairly quiet mode (but not
   totally silent).  However, sometimes you or other kernel developers need
   to see compile, link, or other commands exactly as they are executed.
   For this, use "verbose" build mode.  This is done by inserting
   "V=1" in the "make" command.  E.g.:

	make V=1 all

   To have the build system also tell the reason for the rebuild of each
   target, use "V=2".  The default is "V=0".

 - Keep a backup kernel handy in case something goes wrong.  This is 
   especially true for the development releases, since each new release
   contains new code which has not been debugged.  Make sure you keep a
   backup of the modules corresponding to that kernel, as well.  If you
   are installing a new kernel with the same version number as your
   working kernel, make a backup of your modules directory before you
   do a "make modules_install".
   Alternatively, before compiling, use the kernel config option
   "LOCALVERSION" to append a unique suffix to the regular kernel version.
   LOCALVERSION can be set in the "General Setup" menu.

 - In order to boot your new kernel, you'll need to copy the kernel
   image (e.g. .../linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage after compilation)
   to the place where your regular bootable kernel is found. 

 - Booting a kernel directly from a floppy without the assistance of a
   bootloader such as LILO, is no longer supported.

   If you boot Linux from the hard drive, chances are you use LILO which
   uses the kernel image as specified in the file /etc/lilo.conf.  The
   kernel image file is usually /vmlinuz, /boot/vmlinuz, /bzImage or
   /boot/bzImage.  To use the new kernel, save a copy of the old image
   and copy the new image over the old one.  Then, you MUST RERUN LILO
   to update the loading map!! If you don't, you won't be able to boot
   the new kernel image.

   Reinstalling LILO is usually a matter of running /sbin/lilo. 
   You may wish to edit /etc/lilo.conf to specify an entry for your
   old kernel image (say, /vmlinux.old) in case the new one does not
   work.  See the LILO docs for more information. 

   After reinstalling LILO, you should be all set.  Shutdown the system,
   reboot, and enjoy!

   If you ever need to change the default root device, video mode,
   ramdisk size, etc.  in the kernel image, use the 'rdev' program (or
   alternatively the LILO boot options when appropriate).  No need to
   recompile the kernel to change these parameters. 

 - Reboot with the new kernel and enjoy. 

IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG:

 - If you have problems that seem to be due to kernel bugs, please check
   the file MAINTAINERS to see if there is a particular person associated
   with the part of the kernel that you are having trouble with. If there
   isn't anyone listed there, then the second best thing is to mail
   them to me (torvalds@linux-foundation.org), and possibly to any other
   relevant mailing-list or to the newsgroup.

 - In all bug-reports, *please* tell what kernel you are talking about,
   how to duplicate the problem, and what your setup is (use your common
   sense).  If the problem is new, tell me so, and if the problem is
   old, please try to tell me when you first noticed it.

 - If the bug results in a message like

	unable to handle kernel paging request at address C0000010
	Oops: 0002
	EIP:   0010:XXXXXXXX
	eax: xxxxxxxx   ebx: xxxxxxxx   ecx: xxxxxxxx   edx: xxxxxxxx
	esi: xxxxxxxx   edi: xxxxxxxx   ebp: xxxxxxxx
	ds: xxxx  es: xxxx  fs: xxxx  gs: xxxx
	Pid: xx, process nr: xx
	xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

   or similar kernel debugging information on your screen or in your
   system log, please duplicate it *exactly*.  The dump may look
   incomprehensible to you, but it does contain information that may
   help debugging the problem.  The text above the dump is also
   important: it tells something about why the kernel dumped code (in
   the above example it's due to a bad kernel pointer). More information
   on making sense of the dump is in Documentation/oops-tracing.txt

 - If you compiled the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS you can send the dump
   as is, otherwise you will have to use the "ksymoops" program to make
   sense of the dump (but compiling with CONFIG_KALLSYMS is usually preferred).
   This utility can be downloaded from
   ftp://ftp.<country>.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/ .
   Alternately you can do the dump lookup by hand:

 - In debugging dumps like the above, it helps enormously if you can
   look up what the EIP value means.  The hex value as such doesn't help
   me or anybody else very much: it will depend on your particular
   kernel setup.  What you should do is take the hex value from the EIP
   line (ignore the "0010:"), and look it up in the kernel namelist to
   see which kernel function contains the offending address.

   To find out the kernel function name, you'll need to find the system
   binary associated with the kernel that exhibited the symptom.  This is
   the file 'linux/vmlinux'.  To extract the namelist and match it against
   the EIP from the kernel crash, do:

		nm vmlinux | sort | less

   This will give you a list of kernel addresses sorted in ascending
   order, from which it is simple to find the function that contains the
   offending address.  Note that the address given by the kernel
   debugging messages will not necessarily match exactly with the
   function addresses (in fact, that is very unlikely), so you can't
   just 'grep' the list: the list will, however, give you the starting
   point of each kernel function, so by looking for the function that
   has a starting address lower than the one you are searching for but
   is followed by a function with a higher address you will find the one
   you want.  In fact, it may be a good idea to include a bit of
   "context" in your problem report, giving a few lines around the
   interesting one. 

   If you for some reason cannot do the above (you have a pre-compiled
   kernel image or similar), telling me as much about your setup as
   possible will help.  Please read the REPORTING-BUGS document for details.

 - Alternately, you can use gdb on a running kernel. (read-only; i.e. you
   cannot change values or set break points.) To do this, first compile the
   kernel with -g; edit arch/i386/Makefile appropriately, then do a "make
   clean". You'll also need to enable CONFIG_PROC_FS (via "make config").

   After you've rebooted with the new kernel, do "gdb vmlinux /proc/kcore".
   You can now use all the usual gdb commands. The command to look up the
   point where your system crashed is "l *0xXXXXXXXX". (Replace the XXXes
   with the EIP value.)

   gdb'ing a non-running kernel currently fails because gdb (wrongly)
   disregards the starting offset for which the kernel is compiled.