x86: Add sysctl to allow panic on IOCK NMI error

This patch introduces a new sysctl:

    /proc/sys/kernel/panic_on_io_nmi

which defaults to 0 (off).

When enabled, the kernel panics when the kernel receives an NMI
caused by an IO error.

The IO error triggered NMI indicates a serious system
condition, which could result in IO data corruption. Rather
than contiuing, panicing and dumping might be a better choice,
so one can figure out what's causing the IO error.

This could be especially important to companies running IO
intensive applications where corruption must be avoided, e.g. a
bank's databases.

[ SuSE has been shipping it for a while, it was done at the
  request of a large database vendor, for their users. ]

Signed-off-by: Kurt Garloff <garloff@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Roberto Angelino <robertangelino@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
LKML-Reference: <20090624213211.GA11291@kroah.com>
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/sysctl.c b/kernel/sysctl.c
index 62e4ff9968b5..fba42eda8de2 100644
--- a/kernel/sysctl.c
+++ b/kernel/sysctl.c
@@ -744,6 +744,14 @@ static struct ctl_table kern_table[] = {
                 .proc_handler   = &proc_dointvec,
         },
         {
+                .ctl_name       = CTL_UNNUMBERED,
+                .procname       = "panic_on_io_nmi",
+                .data           = &panic_on_io_nmi,
+                .maxlen         = sizeof(int),
+                .mode           = 0644,
+                .proc_handler   = &proc_dointvec,
+        },
+        {
                 .ctl_name       = KERN_BOOTLOADER_TYPE,
                 .procname       = "bootloader_type",
                 .data           = &bootloader_type,