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oxlog: stop listing /var/dendrite as an extra log directory

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
78/100
Issue type
Refactor
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling

Research direction

Start in dev-tools/oxlog/src/lib.rs at Zones::load and trace ExtraLogDir::Dendrite and the switch zone's extra log directory. Remove the obsolete directory entry, then run the relevant oxlog checks or tests and confirm that oxlog logs oxz_switch --extra no longer lists zlog-cfg-cur.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

oxlog lists /zone/oxz_switch/root/var/dendrite as an "extra" log directory for the dendrite service (Zones::load in dev-tools/oxlog/src/lib.rs), but on current systems it holds no logs.

What's in the directory

dpd's start method (svc-dpd in dendrite) runs dpd from /var/dendrite after copying misc/zlog-cfg there as zlog-cfg-cur. That zlog configuration sends the Tofino SDE's driver logging to bf_drivers.log ("bf_drivers.log", 5M * 5), in dpd's working directory.

However, dpd now sends the SDE's log messages to its own structured log instead. In dendrite, asic/src/tofino_asic/sde_log.rs defines bf_sys_log_callback ("an FFI-compatible routine that the SDE's C code can call when it has a message to be logged"), and asic/src/tofino_asic/mod.rs installs it with a logger tagged "unit" => "bf-sde".

What we see on rack2 (switch zone on BRM42220014)
  • dpd runs with /var/dendrite as its working directory. The directory contains only zlog-cfg-cur, and dpd has no files open in it.
  • No bf_drivers.log* exists anywhere in the switch zone.
  • SDE messages appear in dpd's SMF log, oxide-dendrite:default.log, e.g. {"msg":"QSFP 62 : FLAG_RX_LOS change (0x0 -> 0xf)", …, "unit":"bf-sde","module":"Pltfm"}.
  • An archived dpd log from an older boot (file mtime March 2024) contains zlog-formatted SDE lines on stdout, e.g. 1986-12-28 00:01:16.244179 BF_PLTFM ERROR - QSFP 1 : …. The current boot's log has none, so SDE logging appears to have moved from zlog to dpd's callback at some point.

Since the SDE's logs now live in oxide-dendrite:default.log, oxlog already reports them as the dendrite service's SMF logs, including in support bundles.

Proposal
  • Remove ExtraLogDir::Dendrite, and the switch zone's extra log directory, from oxlog.
  • This changes the output of oxlog logs oxz_switch --extra: it would no longer list zlog-cfg-cur. Support bundles don't collect that file today anyway: sled-diagnostics' extra-log parser skips it, because it isn't named like a log file.
Open questions
  • Is there any configuration or platform (e.g. softnpu, or a lab setup) where dpd still writes bf_drivers.log to /var/dendrite? If so, the directory should stay, and it would need a naming rule for zlog's rotated files.
  • For the dendrite owners: does svc-dpd still need to copy zlog-cfg into /var/dendrite, now that SDE logging goes through bf_sys_log_callback? (Outside omicron; just flagging it.)

Found while working on #11372.

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Merged PRs (30d)
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