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Fatal Errors

Software Errors Triggered in Source Code

Zephyr provides several methods for inducing fatal error conditions through either build-time checks, conditionally compiled assertions, or deliberately invoked panic or oops conditions.

Runtime Assertions

Zephyr provides some macros to perform runtime assertions which may be conditionally compiled. Their definitions may be found in include/zephyr/sys/__assert.h.

Assertions are enabled by setting the __ASSERT_ON preprocessor symbol to a non-zero value. There are two ways to do this:

  • Use the CONFIG_ASSERT and CONFIG_ASSERT_LEVEL kconfig options.

  • Add -D__ASSERT_ON=<level> to the project’s CFLAGS, either on the build command line or in a CMakeLists.txt.

The __ASSERT_ON method takes precedence over the kconfig option if both are used.

Specifying an assertion level of 1 causes the compiler to issue warnings that the kernel contains debug-type __ASSERT() statements; this reminder is issued since assertion code is not normally present in a final product. Specifying assertion level 2 suppresses these warnings.

Assertions are enabled by default when running Zephyr test cases, as configured by the CONFIG_TEST option.

The policy for what to do when encountering a failed assertion is controlled by the implementation of assert_post_action(). Zephyr provides a default implementation with weak linkage which invokes a kernel oops if the thread that failed the assertion was running in user mode, and a kernel panic otherwise.

__ASSERT()

The __ASSERT() macro can be used inside kernel and application code to perform optional runtime checks which will induce a fatal error if the check does not pass. The macro takes a string message which will be printed to provide context to the assertion. In addition, the kernel will print a text representation of the expression code that was evaluated, and the file and line number where the assertion can be found.

For example:

__ASSERT(foo == 0xF0CACC1A, "Invalid value of foo, got 0x%x", foo);

If at runtime foo had some unexpected value, the error produced may look like the following:

ASSERTION FAIL [foo == 0xF0CACC1A] @ ZEPHYR_BASE/tests/kernel/fatal/src/main.c:367
        Invalid value of foo, got 0xdeadbeef
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os: r0/a1:  0x00000004  r1/a2:  0x0000016f  r2/a3:  0x00000000
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os: r3/a4:  0x00000000 r12/ip:  0x00000000 r14/lr:  0x00000a6d
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os:  xpsr:  0x61000000
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os: Faulting instruction address (r15/pc): 0x00009fe4
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os: >>> ZEPHYR FATAL ERROR 4: Kernel panic
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os: Current thread: 0x20000414 (main)
[00:00:00.000,000] <err> os: Halting system

__ASSERT_EVAL()

The __ASSERT_EVAL() macro can also be used inside kernel and application code, with special semantics for the evaluation of its arguments.

It makes use of the __ASSERT() macro, but has some extra flexibility. It allows the developer to specify different actions depending whether the __ASSERT() macro is enabled or not. This can be particularly useful to prevent the compiler from generating comments (errors, warnings or remarks) about variables that are only used with __ASSERT() being assigned a value, but otherwise unused when the __ASSERT() macro is disabled.

Consider the following example:

int x;
x = foo();
__ASSERT(x != 0, "foo() returned zero!");

If __ASSERT() is disabled, then ‘x’ is assigned a value, but never used. This type of situation can be resolved using the __ASSERT_EVAL() macro.

__ASSERT_EVAL ((void) foo(),
               int x = foo(),
               x != 0,
               "foo() returned zero!");

The first parameter tells __ASSERT_EVAL() what to do if __ASSERT() is disabled. The second parameter tells __ASSERT_EVAL() what to do if __ASSERT() is enabled. The third and fourth parameters are the parameters it passes to __ASSERT().

__ASSERT_NO_MSG()

The __ASSERT_NO_MSG() macro can be used to perform an assertion that reports the failed test and its location, but lacks additional debugging information provided to assist the user in diagnosing the problem; its use is discouraged.

Build Assertions

Zephyr provides two macros for performing build-time assertion checks. These are evaluated completely at compile-time, and are always checked.

BUILD_ASSERT()

This has the same semantics as C’s _Static_assert or C++’s static_assert. If the evaluation fails, a build error will be generated by the compiler. If the compiler supports it, the provided message will be printed to provide further context.

Unlike __ASSERT(), the message must be a static string, without printf()-like format codes or extra arguments.

For example, suppose this check fails:

BUILD_ASSERT(FOO == 2000, "Invalid value of FOO");

With GCC, the output resembles:

tests/kernel/fatal/src/main.c: In function 'test_main':
include/toolchain/gcc.h:28:37: error: static assertion failed: "Invalid value of FOO"
 #define BUILD_ASSERT(EXPR, MSG) _Static_assert(EXPR, "" MSG)
                                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
tests/kernel/fatal/src/main.c:370:2: note: in expansion of macro 'BUILD_ASSERT'
  BUILD_ASSERT(FOO == 2000,
  ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kernel Oops

A kernel oops is a software triggered fatal error invoked by k_oops(). This should be used to indicate an unrecoverable condition in application logic.

The fatal error reason code generated will be K_ERR_KERNEL_OOPS.

Kernel Panic

A kernel error is a software triggered fatal error invoked by k_panic(). This should be used to indicate that the Zephyr kernel is in an unrecoverable state. Implementations of k_sys_fatal_error_handler() should not return if the kernel encounters a panic condition, as the entire system needs to be reset.

Threads running in user mode are not permitted to invoke k_panic(), and doing so will generate a kernel oops instead. Otherwise, the fatal error reason code generated will be K_ERR_KERNEL_PANIC.

Exceptions

Spurious Interrupts

If the CPU receives a hardware interrupt on an interrupt line that has not had a handler installed with IRQ_CONNECT() or irq_connect_dynamic(), then the kernel will generate a fatal error with the reason code K_ERR_SPURIOUS_IRQ().

Stack Overflows

In the event that a thread pushes more data onto its execution stack than its stack buffer provides, the kernel may be able to detect this situation and generate a fatal error with a reason code of K_ERR_STACK_CHK_FAIL.

If a thread is running in user mode, then stack overflows are always caught, as the thread will simply not have permission to write to adjacent memory addresses outside of the stack buffer. Because this is enforced by the memory protection hardware, there is no risk of data corruption to memory that the thread would not otherwise be able to write to.

If a thread is running in supervisor mode, or if CONFIG_USERSPACE is not enabled, depending on configuration stack overflows may or may not be caught. CONFIG_HW_STACK_PROTECTION is supported on some architectures and will catch stack overflows in supervisor mode, including when handling a system call on behalf of a user thread. Typically this is implemented via dedicated CPU features, or read-only MMU/MPU guard regions placed immediately adjacent to the stack buffer. Stack overflows caught in this way can detect the overflow, but cannot guarantee against data corruption and should be treated as a very serious condition impacting the health of the entire system.

If a platform lacks memory management hardware support, CONFIG_STACK_SENTINEL is a software-only stack overflow detection feature which periodically checks if a sentinel value at the end of the stack buffer has been corrupted. It does not require hardware support, but provides no protection against data corruption. Since the checks are typically done at interrupt exit, the overflow may be detected a nontrivial amount of time after the stack actually overflowed.

Finally, Zephyr supports GCC compiler stack canaries via CONFIG_STACK_CANARIES. If enabled, the compiler will insert a canary value randomly generated at boot into function stack frames, checking that the canary has not been overwritten at function exit. If the check fails, the compiler invokes __stack_chk_fail(), whose Zephyr implementation invokes a fatal stack overflow error. An error in this case does not indicate that the entire stack buffer has overflowed, but instead that the current function stack frame has been corrupted. See the compiler documentation for more details.

Other Exceptions

Any other type of unhandled CPU exception will generate an error code of K_ERR_CPU_EXCEPTION.

Fatal Error Handling

The policy for what to do when encountering a fatal error is determined by the implementation of the k_sys_fatal_error_handler() function. This function has a default implementation with weak linkage that calls LOG_PANIC() to dump all pending logging messages and then unconditionally halts the system with k_fatal_halt().

Applications are free to implement their own error handling policy by overriding the implementation of k_sys_fatal_error_handler(). If the implementation returns, the faulting thread will be aborted and the system will otherwise continue to function. See the documentation for this function for additional details and constraints.

API Reference

group fatal_apis

Enums

enum k_fatal_error_reason

Values:

enumerator K_ERR_CPU_EXCEPTION

Generic CPU exception, not covered by other codes

enumerator K_ERR_SPURIOUS_IRQ

Unhandled hardware interrupt

enumerator K_ERR_STACK_CHK_FAIL

Faulting context overflowed its stack buffer

enumerator K_ERR_KERNEL_OOPS

Moderate severity software error

enumerator K_ERR_KERNEL_PANIC

High severity software error

Functions

FUNC_NORETURN void k_fatal_halt(unsigned int reason)

Halt the system on a fatal error.

Invokes architecture-specific code to power off or halt the system in a low power state. Lacking that, lock interrupts and sit in an idle loop.

Parameters

  • reason – Fatal exception reason code

void k_sys_fatal_error_handler(unsigned int reason, const z_arch_esf_t *esf)

Fatal error policy handler.

This function is not invoked by application code, but is declared as a weak symbol so that applications may introduce their own policy.

The default implementation of this function halts the system unconditionally. Depending on architecture support, this may be a simple infinite loop, power off the hardware, or exit an emulator.

If this function returns, then the currently executing thread will be aborted.

A few notes for custom implementations:

  • If the error is determined to be unrecoverable, LOG_PANIC() should be invoked to flush any pending logging buffers.

  • K_ERR_KERNEL_PANIC indicates a severe unrecoverable error in the kernel itself, and should not be considered recoverable. There is an assertion in z_fatal_error() to enforce this.

  • Even outside of a kernel panic, unless the fault occurred in user mode, the kernel itself may be in an inconsistent state, with API calls to kernel objects possibly exhibiting undefined behavior or triggering another exception.

Parameters

  • reason – The reason for the fatal error

  • esf – Exception context, with details and partial or full register state when the error occurred. May in some cases be NULL.