Re: Time to deprecate crash dump support in stats tools (or KVM-grovelers in general)?

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA@localhost>]

> One of the upshots of moving to per-CPU data is that the data must be
> collated in order to be reported.  This works well on live systems
> where sysctl is available.  It doesn't work so well on crash dumps;
> the tools then have to know the specifics of how per-CPU data is
> managed for that particular subsystem and collate the data
> themselves.

> Given this, I think it's time to deprecate crash dump support in
> these tools (e.g. netstat(1)), and, more generally, deprecate
> KVM-groveling except in some very specific circumstances.

[In another message, says he forgot to say the intended replacement is
gdb scripts.]

How is it any better to have the code to winkle that stuff out of a
crash dump take the form of gdb scripts rather than the form of kmem
grovelers?  I must be missing something; I don't see how moving from a
stable, well-known, and thoroughly-supported language like C to a
comparatively unknown, under-specified, moving-target language like gdb
scripting is a win.

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