Chapter 7. Introduction to adb


Before we talk about analyzing system crash dumps with adb , let's talk about adb itself. The UNIX adb command is one of the oldest and most readily available UNIX debuggers . Although adb doesn't provide flashy features such as a graphical user interface and the ability to work directly with source code, it is fairly straightforward and, among UNIX gurus, is accepted as the kernel debugger of choice. adb is not limited to examining kernel crashes, but better tools are usually available for finding problems with user programs and application packages.

The name adb , or a bsolute d e b ugger, comes from the fact that adb deals primarily with absolute addresses, normally hexadecimal, and global symbols. It doesn't know about source files, line numbers , local (automatic) variables , or internal function labels. adb works best with assembly language and uncomplicated C code.

adb understands simple, one- or two-character commands that allow you to control the execution of a process on a live system, control the operation of adb , and display the contents of memory or a file in numerous different formats. adb is well suited for work on both live kernels and postmortem files generated by system crashes.

adb , while simple and straightforward in nature, offers a very powerful feature called adb macros. We will briefly discuss adb macros in this chapter, simply as a concept, later exploring macros in much greater depth.



PANIC. UNIX System Crash Dump Analysis Handbook
PANIC! UNIX System Crash Dump Analysis Handbook (Bk/CD-ROM)
ISBN: 0131493868
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1994
Pages: 289
Authors: Chris Drake

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