Kernel Error Recovery Disablement and Shared Recovery Routine Footprint Areas

• Main Authors: MEALEY BRUCE, MALL MICHAEL G
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 21.08.2008
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PHYSICS

A method, computer program product, and data processing system for providing optional failure recovery features in operating system kernel code are disclosed. In accordance with a preferred embodiment, a segment of mainline code may designate a recovery routine for that segment by calling a kernel service provided for that purpose. The kernel service allocates a "footprint" region on the recovery stack for storing state information arising from the execution of the recovery-enabled code. In the event of an exception, a recovery manager routine uses information from the recovery stack to recover from the exception. Recovery may be disabled altogether for performance purposes by way of boot-time patching to disable the use of the recovery stack and to allow state information to be written to a static "scratchpad" area, which unlike the recovery stack, is allowed to be overwritten, its contents being ignored.