xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/witness.4 (revision dd41de95a84d979615a2ef11df6850622bf6184e)
1.\" Copyright (c) 2001 John H. Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
2.\"
3.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
4.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
5.\" are met:
6.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
7.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
8.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
9.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
10.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
11.\"
12.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
13.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
14.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
15.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
16.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
17.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
18.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
19.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
20.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
21.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
22.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
23.\"
24.\" $FreeBSD$
25.\"
26.Dd November 18, 2015
27.Dt WITNESS 4
28.Os
29.Sh NAME
30.Nm witness
31.Nd lock validation facility
32.Sh SYNOPSIS
33.Cd options WITNESS
34.Cd options WITNESS_COUNT
35.Cd options WITNESS_KDB
36.Cd options WITNESS_NO_VNODE
37.Cd options WITNESS_SKIPSPIN
38.Sh DESCRIPTION
39The
40.Nm
41module keeps track of the locks acquired and released by each thread.
42It also keeps track of the order in which locks are acquired with respect
43to each other.
44Each time a lock is acquired,
45.Nm
46uses these two lists to verify that a lock is not being acquired in the
47wrong order.
48If a lock order violation is detected, then a message is output to the
49kernel console or log detailing the locks involved and the locations in
50question.
51Witness can also be configured to drop into the kernel debugger when an order
52violation occurs.
53.Pp
54The
55.Nm
56code also checks various other conditions such as verifying that one
57does not recurse on a non-recursive lock,
58or attempt an upgrade on a shared lock held by another thread.
59If any of these checks fail, then the kernel will panic.
60.Pp
61The
62.Dv WITNESS_COUNT
63kernel option controls the maximum number of
64.Nm
65entries that are tracked in the kernel.
66The maximum number of entries can be queried via the
67.Va debug.witness.count
68sysctl.
69It can also be set from the
70.Xr loader 8
71via the
72.Va debug.witness.count
73environment variable.
74.Pp
75The
76.Dv WITNESS_NO_VNODE
77kernel option tells
78.Nm
79to ignore locking issues between
80.Xr vnode 9
81objects.
82.Pp
83The flag that controls whether or not the kernel debugger is entered when a
84lock order violation is detected can be set in a variety of ways.
85By default, the flag is off, but if the
86.Dv WITNESS_KDB
87kernel option is
88specified, then the flag will default to on.
89It can also be set from the
90.Xr loader 8
91via the
92.Va debug.witness.kdb
93environment variable or after the kernel has booted via the
94.Va debug.witness.kdb
95sysctl.
96If the flag is set to zero, then the debugger will not be entered.
97If the flag is non-zero, then the debugger will be entered.
98.Pp
99The
100.Nm
101code can also be configured to skip all checks on spin mutexes.
102By default, this flag defaults to off, but it can be turned on by
103specifying the
104.Dv WITNESS_SKIPSPIN
105kernel option.
106The flag can also be set via the
107.Xr loader 8
108environment variable
109.Va debug.witness.skipspin .
110If the variable is set to a non-zero value, then spin mutexes are skipped.
111Once the kernel has booted, the status of this flag can be examined but not
112set via the read-only sysctl
113.Va debug.witness.skipspin .
114.Pp
115The sysctl
116.Va debug.witness.watch
117specifies the level of witness involvement in the system.
118A value of 1 specifies that witness is enabled.
119A value of 0 specifies that witness is disabled, but that can be enabled
120again.
121This will maintain a small amount of overhead in the system.
122A value of -1 specifies that witness is disabled permanently and
123cannot be enabled again.
124The sysctl
125.Va debug.witness.watch
126can be set via
127.Xr loader 8 .
128.Pp
129The sysctl
130.Va debug.witness.output_channel
131specifies the output channel used to display warnings emitted by
132.Nm .
133The possible values are
134.Ql console ,
135indicating that warnings are to be printed to the system console,
136.Ql log ,
137indicating that warnings are to be logged via
138.Xr log 9 ,
139and
140.Ql none .
141This sysctl can be set via
142.Xr loader 8 .
143.Pp
144The
145.Nm
146code also provides three extra
147.Xr ddb 4
148commands if both
149.Nm
150and
151.Xr ddb 4
152are compiled into the kernel:
153.Bl -ohang
154.It Ic show locks Op thread
155Outputs the list of locks held by a thread to the kernel console
156along with the filename and line number at which each lock was last acquired
157by the thread.
158The optional
159.Ar thread
160argument may be either a TID,
161PID,
162or pointer to a thread structure.
163If
164.Ar thread
165is not specified,
166then the locks held by the current thread are displayed.
167.It Ic show all locks
168Outputs the list of locks held by all threads in the system to the
169kernel console.
170.It Ic show witness
171Dump the current order list to the kernel console.
172The code first displays the lock order tree for all of the sleep locks.
173Then it displays the lock order tree for all of the spin locks.
174Finally, it displays a list of locks that have not yet been acquired.
175.El
176.Sh SEE ALSO
177.Xr ddb 4 ,
178.Xr loader 8 ,
179.Xr sysctl 8 ,
180.Xr mutex 9
181.Sh HISTORY
182The
183.Nm
184code first appeared in
185.Bsx 5.0
186and was imported from there into
187.Fx 5.0 .
188