gdb: handle core files with .reg/0 section names
The previous commit added the test gdb.arch/core-file-pid0.exp which
tests GDB's ability to load a core file containing threads with an
lwpid of 0, which is something we GDB can encounter when loading a
vmcore file -- a core file generated by the Linux kernel. The threads
with an lwpid of 0 represents idle cores.
While the previous commit added the test, which confirms GDB doesn't
crash when confronted with such a core file, there are still some
problems with GDB's handling of these core files. These problems all
originate from the fact that the core file (once opened by bfd)
contains multiple sections called .reg/0, these sections all
represents different threads (cpu cores in the original vmcore dump),
but GDB gets confused and thinks all of these .reg/0 sections are all
referencing the same thread.
Here is a GDB session on an x86-64 machine which loads the core file
from the gdb.arch/core-file-pid0.exp, this core file contains two
threads, both of which have a pid of 0:
$ ./gdb/gdb --data-directory ./gdb/data-directory/ -q
(gdb) core-file /tmp/x86_64-pid0-core.core
[New process 1]
[New process 1]
Failed to read a valid object file image from memory.
Core was generated by `./segv-mt'.
Program terminated with signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
The current thread has terminated
(gdb) info threads
Id Target Id Frame
2 process 1 0x00000000004017c2 in ?? ()
The current thread <Thread ID 1> has terminated. See `help thread'.
(gdb) maintenance info sections
Core file: `/tmp/x86_64-pid0-core.core', file type elf64-x86-64.
[0] 0x00000000->0x000012d4 at 0x00000318: note0 READONLY HAS_CONTENTS
[1] 0x00000000->0x000000d8 at 0x0000039c: .reg/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[2] 0x00000000->0x000000d8 at 0x0000039c: .reg HAS_CONTENTS
[3] 0x00000000->0x00000080 at 0x0000052c: .note.linuxcore.siginfo/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[4] 0x00000000->0x00000080 at 0x0000052c: .note.linuxcore.siginfo HAS_CONTENTS
[5] 0x00000000->0x00000140 at 0x000005c0: .auxv HAS_CONTENTS
[6] 0x00000000->0x000000a4 at 0x00000714: .note.linuxcore.file/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[7] 0x00000000->0x000000a4 at 0x00000714: .note.linuxcore.file HAS_CONTENTS
[8] 0x00000000->0x00000200 at 0x000007cc: .reg2/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[9] 0x00000000->0x00000200 at 0x000007cc: .reg2 HAS_CONTENTS
[10] 0x00000000->0x00000440 at 0x000009e0: .reg-xstate/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[11] 0x00000000->0x00000440 at 0x000009e0: .reg-xstate HAS_CONTENTS
[12] 0x00000000->0x000000d8 at 0x00000ea4: .reg/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[13] 0x00000000->0x00000200 at 0x00000f98: .reg2/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[14] 0x00000000->0x00000440 at 0x000011ac: .reg-xstate/0 HAS_CONTENTS
[15] 0x00400000->0x00401000 at 0x00002000: load1 ALLOC LOAD READONLY HAS_CONTENTS
[16] 0x00401000->0x004b9000 at 0x00003000: load2 ALLOC READONLY CODE
[17] 0x004b9000->0x004e5000 at 0x00003000: load3 ALLOC READONLY
[18] 0x004e6000->0x004ec000 at 0x00003000: load4 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[19] 0x004ec000->0x004f2000 at 0x00009000: load5 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[20] 0x012a8000->0x012cb000 at 0x0000f000: load6 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[21] 0x7fda77736000->0x7fda77737000 at 0x00032000: load7 ALLOC READONLY
[22] 0x7fda77737000->0x7fda77f37000 at 0x00032000: load8 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[23] 0x7ffd55f65000->0x7ffd55f86000 at 0x00832000: load9 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[24] 0x7ffd55fc3000->0x7ffd55fc7000 at 0x00853000: load10 ALLOC LOAD READONLY HAS_CONTENTS
[25] 0x7ffd55fc7000->0x7ffd55fc9000 at 0x00857000: load11 ALLOC LOAD READONLY CODE HAS_CONTENTS
[26] 0xffffffffff600000->0xffffffffff601000 at 0x00859000: load12 ALLOC LOAD READONLY CODE HAS_CONTENTS
(gdb)
Notice when the core file is first loaded we see two lines like:
[New process 1]
And GDB reports:
The current thread has terminated
Which isn't what we'd expect from a core file -- the core file should
only contain threads that are live at the point of the crash, one of
which should be the current thread. The above message is reported
because GDB has deleted what we think is the current thread!
And in the 'info threads' output we are only seeing a single thread,
again, this is because GDB has deleted one of the threads.
Finally, the 'maintenance info sections' output shows the cause of all
our problems, two sections named .reg/0. When GDB sees the first of
these it creates a new thread. But, when we see the second .reg/0 GDB
tries to create another new thread, but this thread has the same
ptid_t as the first thread, so GDB deletes the first thread and
creates the second thread in its place.
Because both these threads are created with an lwpid of 0 GDB reports
these are 'New process NN' rather than 'New LWP NN' which is what we
would normally expect.
The previous commit includes a little more of the history of GDB
support in this area, but these problems were discussed on the mailing
list a while ago in this thread:
https://inbox.sourceware.org/gdb-patches/AANLkTi=zuEDw6qiZ1jRatkdwHO99xF2Qu+WZ7i0EQjef@mail.gmail.com/
In this commit I propose a solution to these problems.
What I propose is that GDB should spot when we have .reg/0 sections
and, when these are found, should rename these sections using some
unique non-zero lwpid.
Note in the above output we also have sections like .reg2/0 and
.reg-xstate/0, these are additional register sets, this commit also
renumbers these sections inline with their .reg section.
The user is warned that some section renumbering has been performed.
GDB takes care to ensure that the new numbers assigned are unique and
don't clash with any of the pid's that might already be in use --
remember, in a real vmcore file, 0 is used to indicate an idle core,
non-idle cores will have the pid of whichever process was running on
that core, so we don't want GDB to assign an lwpid that clashes with
an actual pid that is in use in the core file.
After this commit here's the updated GDB session output:
$ ./gdb/gdb --data-directory ./gdb/data-directory/ -q
(gdb) core-file /tmp/x86_64-pid0-core.core
warning: found threads with pid 0, assigned replacement Target Ids: LWP 1, LWP 2
[New LWP 1]
[New LWP 2]
Failed to read a valid object file image from memory.
Core was generated by `./segv-mt'.
Program terminated with signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
#0 0x00000000004017c2 in ?? ()
[Current thread is 1 (LWP 1)]
(gdb) info threads
Id Target Id Frame
* 1 LWP 1 0x00000000004017c2 in ?? ()
2 LWP 2 0x000000000040dda5 in ?? ()
(gdb) maintenance info sections
Core file: `/tmp/x86_64-pid0-core.core', file type elf64-x86-64.
[0] 0x00000000->0x000012d4 at 0x00000318: note0 READONLY HAS_CONTENTS
[1] 0x00000000->0x000000d8 at 0x0000039c: .reg/1 HAS_CONTENTS
[2] 0x00000000->0x000000d8 at 0x0000039c: .reg HAS_CONTENTS
[3] 0x00000000->0x00000080 at 0x0000052c: .note.linuxcore.siginfo/1 HAS_CONTENTS
[4] 0x00000000->0x00000080 at 0x0000052c: .note.linuxcore.siginfo HAS_CONTENTS
[5] 0x00000000->0x00000140 at 0x000005c0: .auxv HAS_CONTENTS
[6] 0x00000000->0x000000a4 at 0x00000714: .note.linuxcore.file/1 HAS_CONTENTS
[7] 0x00000000->0x000000a4 at 0x00000714: .note.linuxcore.file HAS_CONTENTS
[8] 0x00000000->0x00000200 at 0x000007cc: .reg2/1 HAS_CONTENTS
[9] 0x00000000->0x00000200 at 0x000007cc: .reg2 HAS_CONTENTS
[10] 0x00000000->0x00000440 at 0x000009e0: .reg-xstate/1 HAS_CONTENTS
[11] 0x00000000->0x00000440 at 0x000009e0: .reg-xstate HAS_CONTENTS
[12] 0x00000000->0x000000d8 at 0x00000ea4: .reg/2 HAS_CONTENTS
[13] 0x00000000->0x00000200 at 0x00000f98: .reg2/2 HAS_CONTENTS
[14] 0x00000000->0x00000440 at 0x000011ac: .reg-xstate/2 HAS_CONTENTS
[15] 0x00400000->0x00401000 at 0x00002000: load1 ALLOC LOAD READONLY HAS_CONTENTS
[16] 0x00401000->0x004b9000 at 0x00003000: load2 ALLOC READONLY CODE
[17] 0x004b9000->0x004e5000 at 0x00003000: load3 ALLOC READONLY
[18] 0x004e6000->0x004ec000 at 0x00003000: load4 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[19] 0x004ec000->0x004f2000 at 0x00009000: load5 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[20] 0x012a8000->0x012cb000 at 0x0000f000: load6 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[21] 0x7fda77736000->0x7fda77737000 at 0x00032000: load7 ALLOC READONLY
[22] 0x7fda77737000->0x7fda77f37000 at 0x00032000: load8 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[23] 0x7ffd55f65000->0x7ffd55f86000 at 0x00832000: load9 ALLOC LOAD HAS_CONTENTS
[24] 0x7ffd55fc3000->0x7ffd55fc7000 at 0x00853000: load10 ALLOC LOAD READONLY HAS_CONTENTS
[25] 0x7ffd55fc7000->0x7ffd55fc9000 at 0x00857000: load11 ALLOC LOAD READONLY CODE HAS_CONTENTS
[26] 0xffffffffff600000->0xffffffffff601000 at 0x00859000: load12 ALLOC LOAD READONLY CODE HAS_CONTENTS
(gdb)
Notice the new warning which is issued when the core file is being
loaded. The threads are announced as '[New LWP NN]', and we see two
threads in the 'info threads' output. The 'maintenance info sections'
output shows the result of the section renaming.
The gdb.arch/core-file-pid0.exp test has been update to check for the
improved GDB output.
2 files changed
