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Enable Drm Panic

Summary

Drm_panic is a new feature in the Linux kernel that displays a panic screen when a kernel panic occurs. This proposal is to enable DRM_PANIC in the Fedora kernel, to improve the kernel panic user experience.


Owner

Current status

Detailed Description

When the linux kernel panics in Fedora 40, in most cases, the screen just freezes. If you're in a VT console, you'll be able to see the kernel debug information, but that is pretty hard to understand for users that are not kernel developers. With this feature, they will see a message saying the computer has crashed, and they need to reboot the computer. Drm_panic has been introduced in kernel v6.10, but is still under active development.

Supported drivers are simpledrm, mgag200, ast, (and imx, tidss, on aarch64). I'm working on nouveau support, and I hope i915 and amdgpu will add support too. If the driver is not supported, you won't see the panic screen, but it won't be worse than what you have today.

Drm panic provides different panic screens. The default is "user" which will display a simple friendly message telling the user to reboot the computer. But for kernel developers, you can also set it to "kmsg", to see the last kmsg lines (so this is equivalent to the current fbcon). You can select the panic screen in Kconfig, or as a module parameter (drm.panic_screen=user) or at runtime with "echo -n kmsg > /sys/module/drm/parameters/panic_screen"

I've also made a proof of concept to add a panic screen with a QR code with debugging information, which will make it easier for users to report kernel panic in Fedora. An example can be seen here: https://github.com/kdj0c/panic_report/issues/1

Feedback

Benefit to Fedora

This change will improve the user experience when a kernel panic occurs. And it will help to report and debug kernel panics.

It's also a first step to switch to userspace console, and being able to disable CONFIG_VT in the kernel. VT and fbcon are legacy part of the kernel, that would reduce maintenance burden if we can disable them. It will also reduce CVE impact, as userspace vulnerabilities are usually less critical.

Scope

  • Proposal owners:

No changes are required to the boot process.

  • Other developers:



There should be no impact on the installer.

  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Alignment with the Fedora Strategy:

I think it perfectly fit the "Fedora is for everyone" goal, as the current kernel panic (either UI freeze or kmsg output in VT) is not user-friendly.

Upgrade/compatibility impact

Enabling DRM_PANIC should be transparent to user. If your graphic driver doesn't support drm_panic, you will still see the old kernel panic message if you're in a VT, or it will freeze in graphic mode. If your graphic driver supports drm_panic, you will see the new panic screen.


Early Testing (Optional)

Do you require 'QA Blueprint' support? Y/N

How To Test

Currently the easiest way to test, is to use the simpledrm driver, as it can run on all hardware. So first blacklist your driver (i915, amdgpu or nouveau), and then boot and check that you're using simpledrm. then you can trigger a kernel panic with: echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

As it will crash your machine, it's also possible to do this in a VM (so disabling virtio-gpu, or vmwgfx)

Also to check that you can still see the kernel messages at boot, in the grub menu, remove the "quiet" kernel command argument, and you should still see the kernel boot messages on the plymouth screen.


User Experience

With DRM panic, users will be notified that their computer crashed, instead of it being unresponsive.

With v6.10, it's only for a few GPU drivers (simpledrm, mgag200, ast), but with simpledrm, it will already catch some common kernel panic cases, like root filesystem not found, or ramdisk corruption. (simpledrm is used at boot, and is later replaced with i915/amdgpu/nouveau ...)

It also prepares for future drm panic improvements, like having a kmsg panic screen, (should be available in v6.11) or also have better debugging information, using QR code. A test sample is shown at https://github.com/kdj0c/panic_report/issues/1

The panic screen can be customized, (background/foreground colors). And a Fedora logo can be added too, but probably with an out-of-tree patch. Maybe UI or Marketing experts can help make it better fit the Fedora design.

Dependencies

The main dependency, is to have a kernel v6.11 or later.

You will also need this patch to make drm_panic works with fbcon/vt_console: https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/series/136182/ that will land in v6.12

Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: Revert the kernel configuration changes.
  • Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
  • Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change), Yes/No

Documentation

Kernel Kconfig for DRM_PANIC: https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.10-rc7/source/drivers/gpu/drm/Kconfig#L107

Release Notes

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