Summary

Obsolete the error reporter functionality, and the TransmitErrorReport and ErrorReportServer flags.

Problem

The error reporter functionality in hotspot allows for plugging in code which gets run on a crash. The code can for example post process the crash information and upload some useful details to a server. It is meant to be used in the development phase, not enabled in GA builds.

The functionality is not used, so it should be removed. There are two flags which control the behavior of the error reporter which need to be obsoleted:

-XX:[+|-]TransmitErrorReport controls whether the error reporter should transmit a report to the server -XX:ErrorReportServer= controls the server to send the data to

Solution

• The error reporter (stub) code will be removed
• The flags will be obsoleted
• (jtreg) Tests which pass in the TransmitErrorReport flag explicitly need to be updated

Specification

The error reporter code in src/hotspot/share/utilities/errorReporter.[ch]pp and any references to it from other hotspot code will be removed.

The two flags will be obsoleted by adding the flags to the special flags table in arguments.cpp:

--- old/src/hotspot/share/runtime/arguments.cpp 2018-08-21 15:40:18.934207253 -0700
+++ new/src/hotspot/share/runtime/arguments.cpp 2018-08-21 15:40:18.730207260 -0700
@@ -572,6 +572,8 @@
   { "PrintSafepointStatistics",      JDK_Version::jdk(11),     JDK_Version::jdk(12), JDK_Version::jdk(13) },
   { "PrintSafepointStatisticsTimeout",JDK_Version::jdk(11),    JDK_Version::jdk(12), JDK_Version::jdk(13) },
   { "PrintSafepointStatisticsCount", JDK_Version::jdk(11),     JDK_Version::jdk(12), JDK_Version::jdk(13) },
+  { "TransmitErrorReport",           JDK_Version::undefined(), JDK_Version::jdk(12), JDK_Version::jdk(13) },
+  { "ErrorReportServer",             JDK_Version::undefined(), JDK_Version::jdk(12), JDK_Version::jdk(13) },

#ifdef TEST_VERIFY_SPECIAL_JVM_FLAGS
{ "dep > obs",                    JDK_Version::jdk(9), JDK_Version::jdk(8), JDK_Version::undefined() },

The jtreg tests (a handful or so) which explicitly disable the error reporter by passing in -XX:-TransmitErrorReport will be updated by simply removing the flag from the command line.