[Crash-utility] [RFC PATCH v2 0/4] Improve stack unwind on ppc64
The Problem:
============
Currently crash is unable to show function arguments and local variables, as
gdb can do. And functionality for moving between frames ('up'/'down') is
not
working in crash.
Crash has 'gdb passthroughs' for things gdb can do, but the gdb passthroughs
'bt', 'frame', 'info locals', 'up', 'down' are not
working either, due to
gdb not getting the register values from `crash_target::fetch_registers`,
which then uses `machdep->get_cpu_reg`, which is not implemented for PPC64
Proposed Solution:
==================
Fix the gdb passthroughs by implementing "machdep->get_cpu_reg" for PPC64.
This way, "gdb mode in crash" will support this feature for both ELF and
kdump-compressed vmcore formats, while "gdb" would only have supported ELF
format
Implications on Architectures:
====================================
No architecture other than PPC64 has been affected, other than in case of
'frame' command
As mentioned in patch #2, since frame will not be prohibited, so it will print:
crash> frame
#0 <unavailable> in ?? ()
Instead of before prohibited message:
crash> frame
crash: prohibited gdb command: frame
On PPC64, the default mode ("crash mode") will not have ANY OTHER changes,
other than 'frame' as mentioned above.
Major change will be in 'gdb mode' on PPC64, that it will print the frames, and
local variables, instead of failing with errors showing no frame, or showing
that couldn't get PC
Testing:
========
Git tree with this patch series applied:
https://github.com/adi-g15-ibm/crash/tree/stack-unwind-rfc2
To test gdb passthroughs:
crash> set gdb on
gdb> thread 3 # or any other thread number to change context in gdb
gdb> bt
gdb> frame
gdb> up
gdb> down
gdb> info locals
Known Issues:
=============
1. In gdb mode, 'info threads' might hang for few seconds, and print only 2
threads
2. In gdb mode, 'bt' might fail to show backtrace in few vmcores collected
from older kernels. This is a known issue due to register mismatch, and
its fix has been merged upstream:
Commit: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/b684c09f09e7a6af3794d4233ef78581...
TODO:
=====
1. Introduce automatic thread selection in gdb mode, to select the crashing
thread in gdb, eliminating the need to manually run "thread <id>"
after
switching to gdb mode.
Changelog:
==========
RFC V2:
- removed patch implementing 'frame', 'up', 'down' in crash
- updated the cover letter by removing the mention of those commands other
than the respective gdb passthrough
Aditya Gupta (4):
add generic get_dumpfile_regs to read registers
ppc64: fix gdb passthrough by implementing machdep->get_cpu_reg
remove 'frame' from prohibited commands list
make cpu context change transparent to crash/gdb
defs.h | 125 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
gdb-10.2.patch | 28 +++++++++++
gdb_interface.c | 2 +-
kernel.c | 33 +++++++++++++
ppc64.c | 105 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
tools.c | 12 +++--
6 files changed, 298 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
--
2.41.0