DEBUGGING ON LINUX

Linux Kernel Debugging on Google-sized clusters

This paper will discuss the difficulties and methods involved in debugging the Linux kernel on huge clusters. Intermittent errors that occur once every few years are hard to debug and become a real problem when running across thousands of machines simultaneously. The more we scale clusters, the more reliability becomes critical. Many of the normal debugging luxuries like a serial console or phy...

Debugging the Linux Madwifi Driver

This report describes a bug in the fragmentation code of the Madwifi driver for the Atheros chipset under the Linux kernel. The bug is due to incorrect locking of a data structure. Techniques for Linux kernel debugging are described, and a fix for the bug is presented.

Simulation-Based Temporal Debugging of Linux

Simulation-based Temporal Debugging of Linux

We present a temporal debugger, capable of examining temporal behaviour of operating systems. The debugger is based on a simulator modelling an entire workstation at the instruction level. Unlike traditional debuggers, which need to interfere with program execution, a simulation-based debugger can operate without disturbing time flow of the simulated system. This allows non-intrusive and reprod...

Generation of Debugging Interfaces for Linux Kernel Services

The Linux kernel does not export a stable, well-de ned kernel interface, complicating the development of kernel-level services, such as device drivers and le systems. While there does exist a set of functions that are exported to external modules, these are continually changing, and have implicit, ill-documented preconditions, which, if not satis ed, can cause the entire system to crash or hang...