Request for review (S): add the JRE name to the error log

Christian Thalinger christian.thalinger at oracle.com
Wed Jun 13 14:12:18 PDT 2012


Does anyone from runtime have an opinion on this one?

-- Chris

On May 16, 2012, at 1:26 PM, Christian Thalinger wrote:

> 
> On May 16, 2012, at 12:44 PM, Krystal Mok wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> Could I get some review for this change, please?
>> https://gist.github.com/2709918#file_jre_name.patch
>> I'm considering this as an initial draft version, and will improve it later on
>> based on comments received.
>> 
>> Background:
>> 
>> An earlier case on hotspot-dev [1][2] seemed to have hit a bug caused by mix-
>> matching an Oracle JRE with a OpenJDK-based HotSpot VM.
>> 
>> Chris suggested [3] that, to better aid future analysis of similar problems,
>> it's useful to print the JRE name in the error log, in addition to the JRE
>> version as printed currently. This patch implements Chris' suggestion.
>> 
>> An example of the effect of this patch is avaiable [4].
>> 
>> There are a few details that I'm not too sure about yet, and I'm looking for
>> comments on them:
>> 
>> 1. How and when should I get the JRE name?
>> 
>> The JRE name is only exposed as a field of a Java-level class, namely the
>> "java_runtime_name" constant field in sun.misc.Version. I couldn't find it
>> exposed anywhere else. It is set into the Java-level system properties, by the
>> key "java.runtime.name", but that's not immediately available to the VM side.
>> 
>> In my patch, I'm fetching the JRE name from sun.misc.Version.java_runtime_name
>> immediately after java.lang.System.initializeSystemClass() is invoked, and then
>> storing it in a static field in JDK_Version. This is safer to do then fetching
>> the name during error reporting, because it may be unreliable to access Java
>> heap contents when the VM is crashing.
>> 
>> There are other alternatives that I've thought about. One is adding a new
>> private interface between JDK/JVM that would allow the JDK to expose its name
>> to the VM directly, perhaps with a new function JDK_GetName0(). But this is
>> more involved then the proposed change.
>> 
>> 2. Where should I store the JRE name?
>> 
>> As mentioned, I'm storing it in a newly added static field in JDK_Version right
>> now. But I'm not sure if this is the place it belongs. Universe doesn't seem
>> like the right place, neither.
>> 
>> Any suggestions or comments are welcomed.
> 
> I looked at the changes and I think this is the right way to implement it.  It will definitely help debugging some strange crashes like the one mentioned.
> 
> -- Chris
> 
>> 
>> Should I cc serviceability-dev as well?
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Kris
>> 
>> [1]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-compiler-dev/2012-May/007647.html
>> [2]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-dev/2012-May/005711.html
>> [3]: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-dev/2012-May/005725.html
>> [4]: https://gist.github.com/2709918
> 

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