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linux-kernelpanic

Why does the Linux kernel panic pin the CPU at 100%?

Take a look at the following:

qemu-system-x86_64 -kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux

This will cause a kernel panic, as expected (there is no init). Much less expected is that it causes one processor core to spin until qemu is killed. Why is this? What exactly causes the kernel to leave the CPU in this state?

Solution

  • Why does the Linux kernel panic pin the CPU at 100%?

    This loop https://code.woboq.org/linux/linux/kernel/panic.c.html#74 :

    while (1)
    cpu_relax();