ksymoops - a utility to decode Linux kernel Oops

ksymoops

[ -v vmlinux ] [ --vmlinux=vmlinux ] [ -V ] [ --no-vmlinux ]

[ -k ksyms ] [ --ksyms=ksyms ] [ -K ] [ --no-ksyms ]

[ -l lsmod ] [ --lsmod=lsmod ] [ -L ] [ --no-lsmod ]

[ -o object ] [ --object=object ] [ -O ] [ --no-object ]

[ -m system.map ] [ --system-map=system.map ] [ -M ] [ --no-system-map ]

[ -s save.map ] [ --save-map=save.map ]

[ -S ] [ --short-lines ]

[ -e ] [ --endian-swap ]

[ -x ] [ --hex ]

[ -1 ] [ --one-shot ]

[ -i ] [ --ignore-insmod-path ]

[ -I ] [ --ignore-insmod-all ]

[ -T truncate ] [ --truncate=truncate ]

[ -d ] [ --debug ]

[ -h ] [ --help ]

[ -t target ] [ --target=target ]

[ -a architecture ] [ --architecture=architecture ]

[ -A "address list" ] [ --addresses="address list" ]

[ Oops.file ... ]

ksymoops extracts kernel Oops reports from the Oops.file and uses various sources of symbol information to convert the addresses and code to meaningful text. Reporting a kernel Oops is meaningless on its own because other people do not know what your kernel looks like, you need to feed the Oops text through ksymoops then send the ksymoops output as part of your bug report.

The ksymoops executable is meant to be run whenever you have Oops to report. The original Oops text can come from anywhere. Typically it is in a file created by your syslogd(8). If syslogd is not available, the log might be available via dmesg(8). If you are running a serial console (see linux/Documentation/serial-console.txt) then you can capture the Oops text on another machine. If all else fails, copy the Oops by hand from the screen, reboot and enter it by hand.

ksymoops can be run by anybody who has read access to the various input files. It does not have to be run as root.

Some of the options have default values that are set in the Makefile. The text below describes the standard defaults but your distribution may have been modified to use different defaults. If in doubt, ksymoops -h will list the current defaults.

The first 10 options (-v, -V, -k, -K, -l, -L, -o, -O, -m, -M or the corresponding long forms) are 5 pairs. The lower case options (vklom) take a value and turn the option on, the upper case options (VKLOM) take no value and turn the option off. If you specify both lower and upper case versions of the same option then the last one is used but you are warned that it may not be what you intended.

ksymoops will run quite happily with no options. However there is a risk that the default values for the symbol sources may not be suitable. Therefore if none of -v vmlinux, -V, -k ksyms, -K, -l lsmod, -L, -o object, -O, -m system.map or -M are specified, ksymoops prints a warning message.

You did not tell me where to find symbol information. I will assume that the log matches the kernel and modules that are running right now and I'll use the default options above for symbol resolution. If the current kernel and/or modules do not match the log, you can get more accurate output by telling me the kernel version and where to find map, modules, ksyms etc. ksymoops -h explains the options.

If any of the -v vmlinux, -k ksyms, -l lsmod, -o object or -m system.map options contain the string *r (*m, *n, *s) then the string is replaced at run time by the current value of `uname -r` (-m, -n, -s). This is mainly intended to let ksymoops automatically pick up version dependent files using its default parameters, however it could be used by bug reporting scripts to automatically pick up files whose name or directory depends on the current kernel.

-v vmlinux --vmlinux=vmlinux

Name of the vmlinux file that corresponds to the failing kernel. Note: This is the vmlinux file, not zImage, bzImage, vmlinuz etc. Typically this would be /usr/src/linux/vmlinux. If you specify -v, you should only specify it once.

-V --no-vmlinux

Do not read any vmlinux file.

Default is -V.

-k ksyms --ksyms=ksyms

Where to find the list of kernel symbols at the time of the failure. Unfortunately the kernel symbol list in /proc/ksyms is volatile, it is updated as modules are loaded and removed. Try to copy /proc/ksyms to a normal file as soon as possible after the Oops and point ksymoops at that copy using -k. Modutils has support for automatically copying ksyms and lsmod data, see insmod(8). If you had to reboot after the Oops and you do not have a copy of /proc/ksyms at the time of the Oops, try to reload the same modules in the same order before running ksymoops. If you specify -k, you should only specify it once.

-K --no-ksyms

Do not read any kernel symbols.

Default is -k /proc/ksyms.

-l lsmod --lsmod=lsmod

Where to find the list of loaded modules at the time of the failure. Unfortunately the list in /proc/modules is volatile, it is updated as modules are loaded and removed. Try to copy /proc/modules to a normal file as soon as possible after the Oops and point ksymoops at that copy using -l. Modutils has support for automatically copying ksyms and lsmod data, see insmod(8). If you had to reboot after the Oops and you do not have a copy of /proc/modules at the time of the Oops, try to reload the same modules in the same order before running ksymoops. If you specify -l, you should only specify it once.

-L --no-lsmod

Do not read any list of loaded modules.

Default is -l /proc/modules.

-o object --object=object

Where to find the objects for modules used by the failing kernel. This can be a directory name or an individual file. If it is a directory then ksymoops does a recursive find(1) in that directory for all files matching '*.o'. -o can be specified more than once, the list is cumulative and can contain a mixture of directories and files.

Note: When you specify a directory, ksymoops only uses files that end in '.o'. Any modules with non-standard names are ignored unless you specify those files explicitly. For example, if vmnet and vmmon modules do not end in '.o', you need something like this to pick up all the normal modules plus the non-standard names.

  -o /lib/modules/*r/ \
  -o /lib/modules/*r/misc/vmnet \
  -o /lib/modules/*r/misc/vmmon

If you are using a version of insmod(8) that stores the module filename in /proc/ksyms, ksymoops can go directly to that file, it does not need -o. The -o option is only used when ksyms contains at least one module whose filename is not explicitly listed in ksyms.

-O --no-object

Do not scan for any objects. If /proc/ksyms is supplied and insmod added the ksymoops assistance symbols (starting with __insmod) then those symbols are used to access the objects, no directory scanning is done so neither -o nor -O have any effect. To completely disable the use of module objects when ksyms contains __insmod symbols, specify -O and one of -i or -I.

Default is -o /lib/modules/*r/. For example, if uname -r reports 2.2.7, ksymoops uses -o /lib/modules/2.2.7/, but only if it does not already know where the objects are.

-m system.map --system-map=system.map

Where to find the System.map corresponding to the failing kernel.

-M --no-system-map

Do not read any System.map.

Default is -m /usr/src/linux/System.map.

-s save.map --save-map=save.map

After ksymoops reads all its sources of symbols, it generates an internal system map which contains everything from System.map plus a best attempt to extract all symbols from all the loaded modules. If you want to see that consolidated map, specify -s save.map to write it out to save.map. You do not need to save the map for normal bug reporting.

Default is no saved map.

-S --short-lines

Some of the ksymoops output lines can be quite long, especially in the code disassembly, but if you have a wide screen the ksymoops output is easier to read as long lines. The -S toggle switches between short and long lines. Note that lines printed by the kernel and extracted from the Oops.file are not affected by -S, problem text is printed as is.

Default is short lines.

-e --endian-swap

ksymoops extracts code bytes from the reports and converts them to instructions. All kernels print code bytes in hex but unfortunately some systems print multiple bytes using the native machine endianess. This only causes a problem if the code is printed in anything other than 1 byte chunks. For example, i386 prints one byte at a time which is machine portable, alpha prints 4 bytes at a time in native endianess and the report is not machine portable.

If you are doing cross system Oops diagnosis (say for a new system or an embedded version of Linux), then the failing system and the reporting system can have different endianess. On systems that support little and big endianess at the same time, ksymoops could be compiled with one endianess but the kernel dump could be using another. If your code disassembly is wrong, specify -e. The -e toggles between native and reverse endianess when reading the bytes in each chunk of code. In this context, a chunk of code is 4 or 8 hex digits (2 or 4 bytes of code), -e has no effect on code that is printed as 2 hex digits (one byte at a time).

Note: Earlier versions of ksymoops used a -c code_bytes option. That is now obsolete, use -e instead, but only when the code disassembly is incorrect.

The default is to read code bytes using the endianess that ksymoops was compiled with.

-x --hex

Normally, ksymoops prints offsets and lengths in hex. If you want offsets and lengths to be printed in decimal, use the -x toggle.

Default is hex.

-1 --one-shot

Normally, ksymoops reads its entire input file and extracts all Oops reports. If the -1 toggle is set, it will run in one shot mode and exit after the first Oops. This is useful for automatically mailing reports as they happen, like this :-

    #!/bin/sh
    # ksymoops1
    while (true)
    do
	ksymoops -1 > $HOME/oops1
	if [ $? -eq 3 ]
	then
	   exit 0  # end of input, no Oops found
	fi
	mail -s Oops admin < $HOME/oops1
    done

tail -f /var/log/messages | ksymoops1

Restarting the tail command after log rotation is left as an exercise for the reader.

In one shot mode, reading of the various symbol sources is delayed until ksymoops sees the first program counter, call trace or code line. This ensures that the current module information is used. The downside is that any parameter errors are not detected until an Oops actually occurs.

The default is to read everything from the Oops.file, extracting and processing every Oops it finds. Note that the default method reads the symbol sources once and assumes that the environment does not change from one Oops to the next, not necessarily valid when you are using modules.

-i --ignore-insmod-path

When you are using an initial ramdisk for modules, the path name to the modules is typically just /lib. That pathname is recorded in the __insmod..._O symbol in ksyms but ksymoops cannot find the files in the real /lib, so it issues warning messages. If you specify -i then ksymoops ignores the path name in __insmod...O symbols, instead it searchs the -o paths (if any) looking for the object with the correct basename and timestamp. -i is recommended when loading modules from a ramdisk. This assumes that the -o paths contain the modules used to build the ramdisk, with the same timestamp.

Default is to use the path from __insmod...O symbols.

-I --ignore-insmod-all

Use this toggle if you want to completely ignore all insmod(8) assistance information (symbols starting with __insmod in ksyms). This includes module paths, timestamps, section start and length etc. Then ksymoops will fall back on the old method of matching symbols to module objects, using the -o paths (if any). It is hard to think of a legitimate reason to use -I, -i is better if your only problem is a path name mismatch.

Default is to use the path from __insmod...O symbols and section information from __insmod...S symbols.

-T truncate --truncate=truncate

If your binutils are configured for multiple targets, they tend to print addresses using the address size of the largest target. If the other inputs to ksymoops have shorter symbol sizes, the different representations cause symbols which should have the same address to appear at different addresses. This is a particular problem when building for mixed 32 and 64 bit targets. To remove the ambiguity, use --truncate=truncate. A value of 0 means no truncation, a value greater than 8*sizeof(unsigned long) is silently converted to 0.

Default is --truncate=0, no truncation.

-d --debug

Each occurrence of -d increases the debugging level of ksymoops by one.

Level 1

Regular expression compile summaries. Before and after text for *[mns] expansion. Option processing, but only for options appearing after -d. Entry to the main processing routines. KSYMOOPS_ environment variables. Object files extracted directly from ksyms. Information on matches between loaded modules and module objects. Filename of the Oops report. Version number for the oops. Saving merged system map.

Level 2

Summary information on symbol table sizes. Every version number found in the oops. Comparing symbol maps. Appending symbol maps. Full pathname of a program. External commands issued. Progress reports for -o object. The names of '*.o' files found in a -o directory. Offset adjustments for module sections. Every line output from running objdump on the code bytes.

Level 3

Every input line from Oops.file. Non-duplicate and low address symbols dropped from the merged system map. Mapping of addresses to symbols.

Level 4

Every input line from all sources, this prints duplicate lines. The return code from every regexec call. Ambiguous matches that are ignored. Every symbol added to every table. Copying symbol tables. Increases in symbol table sizes. Entry to some lower level routines. Every symbol dropped.

Level 5

For matching regexecs, details on every substring.

Default is no debugging.

-h --help

Prints the help text and the current defaults.

-t target --target=target

Normally you do Oops diagnosis using the same hardware as the Oops itself. But sometimes you need to do cross system Oops diagnosis, taking an Oops from one type of hardware and processing it on an another. For example, when you are porting to a new system or you are building an embedded kernel. To do cross system Oops processing, you must tell ksymoops what the target hardware is, using -t target, where target is a bfd target name. You can find out which targets your machine supports by

ksymoops -t '?'

Default is the same target as ksymoops itself, with one exception. On sparc64, the kernel uses elf64-sparc but user programs are elf32-sparc. If -t target was not specified and ksymoops was compiled for elf32-sparc and the Oops contains a TPC line then ksymoops automatically switches to -t elf64-sparc.

-a architecture --architecture=architecture

To do cross system Oops processing, you must tell ksymoops what the target architecture is, using -a architecture, where architecture is a bfd architecture name. You can find out which architectures your machine supports by

ksymoops -a '?'

Default is the same architecture as ksymoops itself, with one exception. On sparc64, the kernel uses sparc:v9a but user programs are sparc. If -a architecture was not specified and ksymoops was compiled for sparc and the Oops contains a TPC line then ksymoops automatically switches to -a sparcv:9a.

-A "address list" --addresses="address list" If you

have a few adhoc addresses to convert to symbols, you can specify them explicitly using -A "address list". Any words in the list that appear to be addresses are converted to symbols. Punctuation characters and non-address words are silently ignored, leading 0x on addresses is also ignored, so you can paste text including words and only the addresses will be processed.

Oops.file ...

ksymoops accepts zero or more input files and reads them all. If no files are specified on the command line and no addresses are supplied via -A then ksymoops reads from standard input. You can even type the Oops text directly at the terminal, although that is not recommended.

ksymoops reads the input file(s), using regular expressions to select lines that are to be printed and further analyzed. You do not need to extract the Oops report by hand.

All tabs are converted to spaces, assuming tabstop=8. Where the text below says "at least one space", tabs work just as well but are converted to spaces before printing. All nulls and carriage returns are silently removed from input lines, both cause problems for string handling and printing.

An input line can have a prefix which ksymoops will print as part of the line but ignore during analysis. A prefix can be from syslogd(8) (consisting of date, time, hostname, 'kernel:'), from syslog-ng (numbers and three other strings separated by '|'), it can be '<n>' from /proc/kmsg or the prefix can just be leading spaces. "start of line" means the first character after skipping all prefixes, including all leading space.

Every kernel architecture team uses different messages for kernel problems, see Oops_read in oops.c for the full, gory list. If you are entering an Oops by hand, you need to follow the kernel format as much as possible, otherwise ksymoops may not recognize your input. Input is not case sensitive.

A bracketed address is optional '[', required '<', at least 4 hex digits, required '>', optional ']', optional spaces. For example [<01234567>] or <beaf>.

An unbracketed address is at least 4 hex digits, followed by optional spaces. For example 01234567 or abCDeF.

The sparc PC line is 'PSR:' at start of line, space, hex digits, space, 'PC:', space, unbracketed address.

The sparc64 TPC line is 'TSTATE:' at start of line, space, 16 hex digits, space 'TPC:', space, unbracketed address.

The ppc NIP line has several formats. 'kernel pc' 'trap at PC:' 'bad area pc' or 'NIP:'. Any of those strings followed by a single space and an unbracketed address is the NIP value.

The mips PC line is 'epc' at start of line, optional space, one or more ':', optional space, unbracketed address.

The ix86 EIP line is 'EIP:' at start of line, at least one space, any text, bracketed address.

The x86_64 EIP line is 'RIP:' at start of line, at least one space, any text, bracketed address.

The m68k PC line is 'PC' at start of line, optional spaces, '=', optional spaces, bracketed address.

The arm PC line is 'pc' at start of line, optional spaces, ':', optional spaces, bracketed address.

The IA64 IP line is ' ip', optional space, ':', optional space, bracketed address.

A mips ra line is 'ra', optional spaces, one or more '=', optional spaces, unbracketed address.

A sparc register dump line is ('i', '0' or '4', ':', space) or ('Instruction DUMP:', space) or ('Caller[').

The IA64 b0 line is 'b0', optional space, ':', optional space, unbracketed address. This can be repeated for other b registers, e.g. b6, b7.

Register dumps have a plethora of formats. Most are of the form 'name: value' repeated across a line, some architectures use '=' instead of ':'. See Oops_regs for the current list of recognised register names. Besides the Oops_regs list, i370, mips, ppc and s390 have special register dump formats, typically one register name is printed followed by multiple values. ksymoops extracts all register contents, but it only decodes and prints register values that can be resolved to a kernel symbol.

A set of call trace lines starts with 'Trace:' or 'Call Trace:' or 'Call Backtrace:' (ppc only) or 'Function entered at' (arm only) or 'Caller[' (sparc64 only) followed by at least one space.

For 'Trace:' and 'Call Trace:', the rest of the line is bracketed addresses, they can be continued onto extra lines. Addresses can not be split across lines.

For 'Call Backtrace:' (ppc only), the rest of the line is unbracketed addresses, they can be continued onto extra lines. Addresses can not be split across lines.

For 'Function entered at' (arm only), the line contains exactly two bracketed addresses and is not continued.

For 'Caller[' (sparc64 only), the line contains exactly one unbracketed address and is not continued.

Spin loop information is indicated by a line starting with 'bh: ', followed by lines containing reverse bracketed trace back addresses. For some reason, these addresses are different from every other address and look like this '<[hex]> <[hex]>' instead of the normal '[<hex>] [<hex>]'.

The Code line is identified by 'Instruction DUMP' or ('Code' followed by optional spaces), ':', one or more spaces, followed by at least one hex value. The line can contain multiple hex values, each separated by at least one space. Each hex value must be 2 to 8 digits and must be a multiple of 2 digits.

Any of the code values can be enclosed in <..> or (..), the last such value is assumed to be the failing instruction. If no value has <..> or (..) then the first byte is assumed to be the failing instruction.

Special cases where Code: can be followed by text. 'Code: general protection' or 'Code: <n>'. Dump the data anyway, the code was unavailable.

Do you detect a slight note of inconsistency in the above?

Addresses are converted to symbols based on the symbols in vmlinux, /proc/ksyms, object files for modules and System.map, or as many of those sources as ksymoops was told to read. ksymoops uses as many symbol sources as you can provide, does cross checks between the various sources to identify any discrepancies and builds a merged map containing all symbols, including loaded modules where possible.

Symbols which end in _R_xxxxxxxx (8 hex digits) or _R_smp_xxxxxxxx are symbol versioned, see genksyms(8). ksymoops strips the _R_... when building its internal system map.

Module symbols do not appear in vmlinux nor System.map and only exported symbols from modules appear in /proc/ksyms. Therefore ksymoops tries to read module symbols from the object files specified by -o. Without these module symbols, diagnosing a problem in a module is almost impossible.

There are many problems with module symbols, especially with versions of insmod(8) up to and including 2.1.121. Some modules do not export any symbols, there is no sign of them in /proc/ksyms so they are effectively invisible. Even when a module exports symbols, it typically only exports one or two, not the complete list that is really needed for Oops diagnosis. ksymoops can build a complete symbol table from the object module but it has to (a) Know that the module is loaded. (b) Find the correct object file for that module. (c) Convert section and symbol data from the module into kernel addresses.

If a module exports no symbols then there is no way for ksymoops to obtain any information about that module. lsmod says it is loaded but without symbols, ksymoops cannot find the corresponding object file nor map offsets to addresses. Sorry but that is the way it is, if you Oops in a module that displays no symbols in ksyms, forget it :(.

When a module exports symbols, the next step is to find the object file for that module. In most cases the loaded module and the object file has the same basename but that is not guaranteed. For example, insmod uart401 -o xyz

will load uart401.o from your module directories but store it as xyz. Both ksyms and lsmod say module name 'xyz' with no indication that the original object file was uart401. So ksymoops cannot just use the module name from ksyms or lsmod, it has to do a lot more work to find the correct object. It does this by looking for a unique match between exported symbols and symbols in the module objects.

For every file obtained from the -o option(s), ksymoops extracts all symbols (both static and external), using nm(1). It then runs the exported module symbols in ksyms and, for every exported module symbol, it does a string compare of that symbol against every symbol in every object. When ksymoops finds a module symbol that is exported in ksyms and appears exactly once amongst all the -o objects then it has to assume that the object is the one used to load the module. If ksymoops cannot find any match for any exported symbol in a module or finds more than one match for every exported symbol in a module then it cannot determine which object was actually loaded.

After ksymoops has matched a loaded module against an object using a unique symbol, it still has to calculate addresses for the symbols from the object. To do this, ksymoops first needs the start address of the text, data and read only data sections in the loaded module. Given the start address of a section, ksymoops can calculate the kernel address of every symbol in that section and add the symbols to the combined system map, this includes symbols that are not exported. Unfortunately the start address of a section is only available if the module exports at least one symbol from that section. For example, if a module only exports text symbols (the most common case) then ksymoops can only calculate the start of the text section and has to discard symbols from the data and read only data sections for that module, reducing the information available for diagnosis.

When multiple symbol sources are available and those symbol sources contain a kernel version number, ksymoops compares all the version numbers. It flags a warning if there is any mismatch. One of the more common causes of problems is force loading a module from one kernel into a different kernel. Even if it was deliberate, it needs to be highlighted for diagnosis.

When both ksyms and lsmod are available, the list of modules extracted from ksyms is compared against the list of modules from lsmod. Any difference is flagged as a warning, it typically indicates invisible modules. However it can also be caused by a mismatch between ksyms and lsmod.

When multiple symbol sources are available, ksymoops does cross checks between them. Each check is only performed if both symbol sources are present and non-empty. Every symbol in the first source should appear in the second source and should have the same address. Where there is any discrepancy, one of the sources takes precedence, the precedence is somewhat arbitrary. Some discrepancies are silently ignored because they are special cases but the vast majority of symbols are expected to match. * Exported module symbols in ksyms are compared against the symbols in the corresponding object file. ksyms takes precedence. * The kernel (non module) symbols from ksyms are compared against vmlinux. vmlinux takes precedence. * The symbols from System.map are compared against vmlinux. vmlinux takes precedence. * The symbols from vmlinux are compared against System.map. vmlinux takes precedence. These two sources are compared in both directions, they should be identical. * The kernel (non module) symbols from ksyms are compared against System.map. System.map takes precedence.

After reading and cross checking all the symbol sources, they are merged into a single system map. Duplicate symbols, registers (type a) and static 'gcc2_compiled.' symbols are dropped from the merged map. Any symbols with an address below 4096 are discarded, these are symbols like Using_Versions which has an address of 0.

Given all the above processing and deduction, it is obvious that the merged system map cannot be 100% reliable, which means that conversion of addresses to symbols cannot be reliable. The addresses are valid but the symbol conversion is only as good as the symbol sources you fed into ksymoops.

/proc/ksyms and /proc/lsmod are volatile so unless ksymoops gets the current ksyms, you always have to question the validity of the module information. The only way I know to (almost) guarantee valid ksyms is to use ksymoops in one shot mode (see option -1). Then ksymoops reads the log and decodes Oops in real time.

Modutils 2.3.1 onwards has support to make oops debugging easier, especially for modules. See insmod(8) for details. If you want automatic snapshots of ksyms and lsmod data as modules are loaded and unloaded, create /var/log/ksymoops, it should be owned by root with mode 644 or 600. If you do not want automatic snapshots, do not create the directory. A script (insmod_ksymoops_clean) is provided by modutils to delete old versions, this should be run by cron once a day.

ksymoops prints all lines that contain text which might indicate a kernel problem. Due the complete lack of standards in kernel error messages, I cannot guarantee that all problem lines are printed. If you see a line in your logs which ksymoops should extract but does not, contact the maintainer.

When ksymoops sees EIP/PC/NIP/TPC lines, call trace lines or code lines, it prints them and stores them for later processing. When the code line is detected, ksymoops converts the EIP/PC/NIP/TPC address and the call trace addresses to symbols. These lines have ';' after the header instead of ':', just in case anybody wants to feed ksymoops output back into ksymoops, these generated lines are ignored.

Formatted data for the program counter, trace and code is only output when the Code: line is seen. If any data has been stored for later formatting and more than 5 lines other than Oops text or end of file are encountered then ksymoops assumes that the Code: line is missing or garbled and dumps the formatted data anyway. That should be fail safe because the Code: line (or its equivalent) signals the end of the Oops report. Except for sparc64 on SMP which has a register dump after the code. ksymoops tries to cater for this exception. Sigh.

Addresses are converted to symbols wherever possible. For example

  >>EIP; c0113f8c <sys_init_module+49c/4d0>
  Trace; c011d3f5 <sys_mremap+295/370>
  Trace; c011af5f <do_generic_file_read+5bf/5f0>
  Trace; c011afe9 <file_read_actor+59/60>
  Trace; c011d2bc <sys_mremap+15c/370>
  Trace; c010e80f <do_sigaltstack+ff/1a0>
  Trace; c0107c39 <overflow+9/c>
  Trace; c0107b30 <tracesys+1c/23>
  Trace; 00001000 Before first symbol

Each converted address is followed by the nearest symbol below that address. That symbol is followed by the offset of the address from the symbol. The value after '/' is the "size" of the symbol, the difference between the symbol and the next known symbol. So >>EIP; c0113f8c <sys_init_module+49c/4d0> means that the program counter was c0113f8c. The previous symbol is sys_init_module, the address is 0x49c bytes from the start of the symbol, sys_init_module is 0x4d0 bytes long. If you prefer decimal offsets and lengths see option -x. If the symbol comes from a module, it is prefixed by '[module_name]', several modules have the same procedure names.

The use of 'EIP' for program counter above is for ix86. ksymoops tries to use the correct acronym for the program counter (PC, NIP, TPC etc.) but if it does not recognize the target hardware, it defaults to EIP.

When a Code: line is read, ksymoops extracts the code bytes. It uses the program counter line together with the code bytes to generate a small object file in the target architecture. ksymoops then invokes objdump(1) to disassemble this object file. The human readable instructions are extracted from the objdump output and printed with address to symbol conversion. If the disassembled code does not look sensible, see the -e, -a and -t options.

TAKE ALL SYMBOLS, OFFSETS AND LENGTHS WITH A PINCH OF SALT! The addresses are valid but the symbol conversion is only as good as the input you gave ksymoops. See all the problems in "ADDRESS TO SYMBOL CONVERSION" above. Also the stack trace is potentially ambiguous. The kernel prints any addresses on the stack that might be valid addresses. The kernel has no way of telling which (if any) of these addresses are real and which are just lying on the stack from previous procedures. ksymoops just decodes what the kernel prints.

KSYMOOPS_NM

Path for nm, defaults to ${INSTALL_PREFIX}/bin/${CROSS}nm.

KSYMOOPS_FIND

Path for find, defaults to /usr/bin/find.

KSYMOOPS_OBJDUMP

Path for objdump, defaults to ${INSTALL_PREFIX}/bin/${CROSS}objdump.

To process an Oops from one system on another, you need access to all the symbol sources, including modules, System.map, ksyms etc. If the two systems are different hardware, you also need versions of the nm and objdump commands that run on your system but handle the target system. You also need versions of libbfd, libopcodes, and libiberty that handle the target system. Consult the binutils documentation for instructions on how to build cross system versions of these utilities.

To override the default versions of nm and find, use the environment variables above. To use different versions of libbfd and libiberty, use the --rpath option when linking ksymoops or the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable when running ksymoops. See the info pages for ld and /usr/share/doc/libc6/FAQ.gz. You can also build a version of ksymoops that is dedicated to the cross compile environment by using the BFD_PREFIX, DEF_TARGET, DEF_ARCH and CROSS options at build time. See INSTALL in the ksymoops source package for more details.

Because of the plethora of possible kernel error and information strings, ksymoops's pattern matching sometimes prints lines that are not errors at all. For example, a line starting with 3c589 matches the pattern for a call trace line, both start with at least 4 hex digits. Humans are smarter than programs, ignore spurious lines.

Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au> - maintainer.

Patches from Jakub Jelinek <jj@sunsite.mff.cuni.cz>, Richard Henderson <rth@twiddle.net>.

The original ksymoops.cc was written by Greg McGary <gkm@magilla.cichlid.com> and updated by Andreas Schwab <schwab@issan.informatik.uni-dortmund.de>. That version required C++ and supported only ix86 and m68k.

To get the equivalent of the old ksymoops.cc (no vmlinux, no modules, no ksyms, no System.map) use ksymoops -VKLOM. Or to just read System.map, ksymoops -VKLO -m mapfile.

find(1), insmod(8), nm(1), objdump(1), rmmod(8), dmesg(8), genksyms(8), syslogd(8). bfd info files.