[lldb-dev] [RFC] OS Awareness in LLDB

[Alexander Polyakov via lldb-dev]

Looks like I don't completely understand what is the difference between
user-mode and kernel-mode from the debugger's point of view. Could you
please explain me this?

On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 10:22 PM Zachary Turner <zturner at google.com> wrote:

> I don’t totally agree with this. I think there are a lot of useful os
> awareness tasks in user mode. For example, you’re debugging a deadlock and
> want to understand the state of other mutexes, who owns them, etc. or you
> want to examine open file descriptors. In the case of a heap corruption you
> may wish to study the internal structures of your process’s heap, or even
> lower level, the os virtual memory page table structures.
>
> There’s quite a lot you can still do in user mode, but definitely there is
> more in kernel mode. As Leonard said, try put WinDbg as a lot of this stuff
> already exists so it’s a good reference
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 12:08 PM Alexander Polyakov via lldb-dev <
> lldb-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Leonard,
>>
>> I think it will be kernel-mode debugging since debugging an application
>> in user mode is not an OS awareness imo. Of course, some of kernel's
>> modules might run in user-mode, but it will be ok I think.
>>
>> Thanks for your reference, I'll take a look at it.
>>
>> Also, I found out that ARM supports OS awareness in their DS-5 debugger.
>> They have a mechanism for adding new operating systems. All you need to do
>> is to describe OS' model (thread's or task's structure for example). I
>> think that is how it might be done in LLDB.
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 9:26 PM Leonard Mosescu <mosescu at google.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Alexander, are you interested in user-mode, kernel-mode debugging or
>>> both?
>>>
>>> Fore reference, the current state of the art regarding OS-awareness
>>> debugging is debugging tools for windows
>>> <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/index> (windbg
>>> & co.). This is not surprising since the tools were developed alongside
>>> Windows. Obviously they are specific to Windows, but it's good example of
>>> how the OS-awareness might look like.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 11:37 AM, Alexander Polyakov via lldb-dev <
>>> lldb-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi lldb-dev,
>>>>
>>>> I'm a senior student at Saint Petersburg State University. The one of
>>>> my possible diploma themes is "OS Awareness in LLDB". Generally, the OS
>>>> awareness extends a debugger to provide a representation of the OS threads
>>>> - or tasks - and other relevant data structures, typically semaphores,
>>>> mutexes, or queues.
>>>>
>>>> I want to ask the community if OS awareness is interesting for LLDB
>>>> users and developers? The main goal is to create some base on top of LLDB
>>>> that can be extended to support awareness for different operating systems.
>>>>
>>>> Also, if you have a good article or other useful information about OS
>>>> awareness, please share it with me.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance!
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Alexander
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> lldb-dev mailing list
>>>> lldb-dev at lists.llvm.org
>>>> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lldb-dev
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Alexander
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>>
>

-- 
Alexander
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