Marcelo Tosatti <[email protected]> writes: > On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 01:53:36PM -0400, Jason Baron wrote: >> On Fri, May 04, 2012 at 05:23:51PM -0400, Jason Baron wrote: >> > Add a command line parameter to not dump guest memory in the core dump, the >> > command line is: -dont-dump-guest. This brought the core dump down from >> > 383MB to 13 MB on a 1GB guest. >> > >> > Signed-off-by: Jason Baron <[email protected]> >> > --- >> > exec.c | 13 +++++++++++++ >> > osdep.h | 7 +++++++ >> > qemu-options.hx | 5 +++++ >> > sysemu.h | 1 + >> > vl.c | 4 ++++ >> > 5 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) >> > >> >> Any thoughts on this? Is the guest memory often helpful in debugging >> when the qemu process segfaults? > > For most development related usage, no (with large guests, its > troublesome). > > Please add documentation for the command (patch looks fine otherwise). > >> This feature also seems useful if somebody is running a sensitive >> workload, such that the non-sensitive qemu state can be dumped >> independently of the guest state. In that case, perhaps there should
I wouldn't make claims related to guest data confidentiality, because sensitive stuff could conceivably leak from guest RAM (not dumped) into device model state (dumped). >> also be an option that allows the guest to be dumped on a segfault, now >> separately? > > Isnt what this option does? (well, disabling it). It seems there could be more knobs to control than just "dump guest state yes/no". Therefore, extensible command line syntax like "--core-dump guest-ram=off" seems to be advisable. We have too many -dont-do-FOO options already.
