23 Oct, 2010
1 commit
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For quite some time there have been problems with memory barriers and
various races with NMI on multi processor systems using the kernel
debugger. The algorithm for entering the kernel debug core and
resuming kernel execution was racy and had several known edge case
problems with attempting to debug something on a heavily loaded system
using breakpoints that are hit repeatedly and quickly.The prior "locking" design entry worked as follows:
* The atomic counter kgdb_active was used with atomic exchange in
order to elect a master cpu out of all the cpus that may have
taken a debug exception.
* The master cpu increments all elements of passive_cpu_wait[].
* The master cpu issues the round up cpus message.
* Each "slave cpu" that enters the debug core increments its own
element in cpu_in_kgdb[].
* Each "slave cpu" spins on passive_cpu_wait[] until it becomes 0.
* The master cpu debugs the system.The new scheme removes the two arrays of atomic counters and replaces
them with 2 single counters. One counter is used to count the number
of cpus waiting to become a master cpu (because one or more hit an
exception). The second counter is use to indicate how many cpus have
entered as slave cpus.The new entry logic works as follows:
* One or more cpus enters via kgdb_handle_exception() and increments
the masters_in_kgdb. Each cpu attempts to get the spin lock called
dbg_master_lock.
* The master cpu sets kgdb_active to the current cpu.
* The master cpu takes the spinlock dbg_slave_lock.
* The master cpu asks to round up all the other cpus.
* Each slave cpu that is not already in kgdb_handle_exception()
will enter and increment slaves_in_kgdb. Each slave will now spin
try_locking on dbg_slave_lock.
* The master cpu waits for the sum of masters_in_kgdb and slaves_in_kgdb
to be equal to the sum of the online cpus.
* The master cpu debugs the system.In the new design the kgdb_active can only be changed while holding
dbg_master_lock. Stress testing has not turned up any further
entry/exit races that existed in the prior locking design. The prior
locking design suffered from atomic variables not being truly atomic
(in the capacity as used by kgdb) along with memory barrier races.Signed-off-by: Jason Wessel
Acked-by: Dongdong Deng
21 May, 2010
3 commits
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One of the driving forces behind integrating another front end (kdb)
to the debug core is to allow front end commands to be accessible via
gdb's monitor command. It is true that you could write gdb macros to
get certain data, but you may want to just use gdb to access the
commands that are available in the kdb front end.This patch implements the Rcmd gdb stub packet. In gdb you access
this with the "monitor" command. For instance you could type "monitor
help", "monitor lsmod" or "monitor ps A" etc...There is no error checking or command restrictions on what you can and
cannot access at this point. Doing something like trying to set
breakpoints with the monitor command is going to cause nothing but
problems. Perhaps in the future only the commands that are actually
known to work with the gdb monitor command will be available.Signed-off-by: Jason Wessel
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These are the minimum changes to the kgdb core in order to enable an
API to connect a new front end (kdb) to the debug core.This patch introduces the dbg_kdb_mode variable controls where the
user level I/O is routed. It will be routed to the gdbstub (kgdb) or
to the kdb front end which is a simple shell available over the kgdboc
connection.You can switch back and forth between kdb or the gdb stub mode of
operation dynamically. From gdb stub mode you can blindly type
"$3#33", or from the kdb mode you can enter "kgdb" to switch to the
gdb stub.The logic in the debug core depends on kdb to look for the typical gdb
connection sequences and return immediately with KGDB_PASS_EVENT if a
gdb serial command sequence is detected. That should allow a
reasonably seamless transition between kdb -> gdb without leaving the
kernel exception state. The two gdb serial queries that kdb is
responsible for detecting are the "?" and "qSupported" packets.CC: Ingo Molnar
Signed-off-by: Jason Wessel
Acked-by: Martin Hicks -
Split the former kernel/kgdb.c into debug_core.c which contains the
kernel debugger exception logic and to the gdbstub.c which contains
the logic for allowing gdb to talk to the debug core.This also created a private include file called debug_core.h which
contains all the definitions to glue the debug_core to any other
debugger connections.CC: Ingo Molnar
Signed-off-by: Jason Wessel