[Crash-utility] [PATCH] Improve error handling when architecture doesn't match

[Bernhard Walle]

* Dave Anderson <anderson at redhat.com> [2007-12-21 22:30]:
>
> Actually this patch has just turned up different issues
> that have to be handled, because the e_type and e_phnum
> get deferred until after the e_machine and endianness
> are checked.
>
> Among them the fact that an i386 xen guest core file
> taken by an x86_64 host has the e_machine type set
> to x86_64 (don't ask me why they did that...), and has
> an e_phnum of 0.  Anyway, that requires the e_phnum
> to be checked *before* the machine type and endianness.
>
> And another, since the e_type doesn't get checked
> until *after* the machine type and endianness,
> it allows the vmlinux file (ET_EXEC) to get passed
> through, which can generate a bogus error message
> about the vmlinux file!
>
> And there's probably others...
>
> There was a method to my madness in the way it's written
> now.  I'm going to have to spend some more time with
> this because I don't want to introduce false alarms
> or print error messages that don't make any sense...

*Arrrg*, sorry for not taking all this into account. I only tested
with a few Kdump dumps from different architectures, but not with Xen
dumps.

You're right, and I'll send a new patch that tries to handle all this.
But probably next year ...


Merry Christmas,
            Bernhard