pstore: new filesystem interface to platform persistent storage

Some platforms have a small amount of non-volatile storage that
can be used to store information useful to diagnose the cause of
a system crash.  This is the generic part of a file system interface
that presents information from the crash as a series of files in
/dev/pstore.  Once the information has been seen, the underlying
storage is freed by deleting the files.

Signed-off-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>

1 files changed, 35 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/ABI/testing/pstore b/Documentation/ABI/testing/pstore
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f1fb2a004264
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/ABI/testing/pstore
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+Where:		/dev/pstore/...
+Date:		January 2011
+Kernel Version: 2.6.38
+Contact:	tony.luck@intel.com
+Description:	Generic interface to platform dependent persistent storage.
+
+		Platforms that provide a mechanism to preserve some data
+		across system reboots can register with this driver to
+		provide a generic interface to show records captured in
+		the dying moments.  In the case of a panic the last part
+		of the console log is captured, but other interesting
+		data can also be saved.
+
+		# mount -t pstore - /dev/pstore
+
+		$ ls -l /dev/pstore
+		total 0
+		-r--r--r-- 1 root root 7896 Nov 30 15:38 dmesg-erst-1
+
+		Different users of this interface will result in different
+		filename prefixes.  Currently two are defined:
+
+		"dmesg"	- saved console log
+		"mce"	- architecture dependent data from fatal h/w error
+
+		Once the information in a file has been read, removing
+		the file will signal to the underlying persistent storage
+		device that it can reclaim the space for later re-use.
+
+		$ rm /dev/pstore/dmesg-erst-1
+
+		The expectation is that all files in /dev/pstore
+		will be saved elsewhere and erased from persistent store
+		soon after boot to free up space ready for the next
+		catastrophe.