Kernel debugger
A kernel debugger is a debugger present in some operating system kernels to ease debugging and kernel development by the kernel developers. A kernel debugger might be a stub implementing low-level operations, with a full-blown debugger such as gdb, running on another machine, sending commands to the stub over a serial line or a network connection, or it might provide a command line that can be used directly on the machine being debugged.
Operating systems and operating system kernels that contain a kernel debugger:
- The Windows NT family includes a kernel debugger named KD,[1] which can act as a local debugger with limited capabilities (reading and writing kernel memory, but not setting breakpoints)[2] and can attach to a remote machine over a serial line, IEEE 1394 connection, USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 connection.[3] The WinDbg GUI debugger can also be used to debug kernels on local and remote machines.
- BeOS
- DragonFly BSD
- Linux kernel; No kernel debugger was included in the mainline Linux tree prior to version 2.6.26-rc1 because Linus Torvalds didn't want a kernel debugger in the kernel.[4][5]
- NetBSD (DDB for local, KGDB for remote)
- OS X,[10] Darwin which runs the XNU kernel using the Mach component
References
- ^ "KD". Retrieved 2011-01-25.
- ^ "Performing Local Kernel Debugging". Retrieved 2011-01-25.
- ^ "Windows Debugging". Retrieved 2013-05-22.
- ^ "LWN.net". Retrieved 2008-05-29.
- ^ Torvalds, Linus (3 May 2008). "Linux 2.6.26-rc1". LWN. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
- ^ Nellitheertha, Hariprasad. "Inside the Linux kernel debugger". Retrieved 2008-05-29.
- ^ "LWN Weekly Kernel News". 7 Sep 2008.
- ^ "MDB Github Website". 1 Jan 2016.
- ^ "LWN Weekly Kernel News". 28 June 2010.
- ^ Singh, Amit (December 2003). "XNU: The Kernel". What is Mac OS X?. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
the built-in low-level kernel debugger, ddb, is part of XNU's Mach component, and so is kdp, a remote kernel debugging protocol implementation
