Bug#789180: linux: Register corruption bug on sparc, please enable SLUB as workaround
Source: linux
Severity: important
Tags: upstream
Dear Maintainer,
The kernel has a register corruption bug on sparc that is causing corruption
and failed builds. Enabling SLUB instead of SLAB in the kernel is an
effective workaround.
James Y Knight observed it here
https://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2015/06/msg00005.html
and he includes the source for a test case. It is also causing failed builds
such as this
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=789013
This problem has been around for a long time. I haven't been able to find a
good version to bisect from.
During the course of my testing I discovered an effective workaround, enabling
SLUB as the kernel allocator instead of SLAB seems to prevent the error from
occurring.
With SLAB enabled Knight's test program produces an error within seconds.
With SLUB enabled Knight's test program ran for more than 10 hours without
producing an error. SLUB also fixes the nettle build.
Because this workaround seems to be very effective and should have a very low
impact on users I request that you enable SLUB on sparc kernels while the
cause of the problem is investigated.
I'll add a patch once I figure out the Debian kernel config generation. But it
seems like it would look something like:
##
## file: init/Kconfig
##
# CONFIG_SLAB is not set
CONFIG_SLUB=y
added to debian/config/kernelarch-sparc/config .
Thanks,
David
-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: sparc (sparc64)
Foreign Architectures: sparc64
Kernel: Linux 4.1.0-rc7.201506100842+ (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
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