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Re: [RFC PATCH v1] imagebuilder: Add a script to check the sanity of device tree


  • To: "Orzel, Michal" <michal.orzel@xxxxxxx>, Ayan Kumar Halder <ayan.kumar.halder@xxxxxxx>, <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • From: Ayan Kumar Halder <ayankuma@xxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2025 15:16:43 +0100
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  • Delivery-date: Thu, 04 Sep 2025 14:16:57 +0000
  • List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xenproject.org>

Hi,

On 01/09/2025 14:51, Ayan Kumar Halder wrote:
Hi Michal,

On 01/09/2025 14:17, Orzel, Michal wrote:

On 01/09/2025 14:31, Ayan Kumar Halder wrote:
Xen gives a panic if certain nodes are not present in the device tree. In order to prevent this panic, scripts/dt_sanity.py is written so that it checks if the node/s are present. If the node/s are not present, the script gives an error.

User is expected to run the script against the device tree before booting Xen
with dtb.

One thing I forgot to mention is that as part of safety certification, we do need to do "Failure mode and error analysis". This means describing the scenarios in which Xen can fail to perform its regular functionality and coming up with prevention, detection and mitigation measures.

One can argue that the panics caused by system misconfiguration, are the most straightforward of all the errors. However, we do need to define prevention mechanisms to avoid these panics. For this particular failure, the prevention mechanism can be described as manually looking into the device tree to ensure that the nodes expected by Xen, are present. The script aims to provide a better alternative.

This script is not meant to catch all possible panics. However we do want to have such scripts and utilities wherever possible, and document them as part of our FMEA.

May be a safety expert can comment if the approach makes sense.

- Ayan





 


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