[Crash-utility] [ANNOUNCE] crash version 5.1.4 is available

[Dave Anderson]

  - Fix for RT kernels in which the schedule() function has become a 
    wrapper function that calls the  __schedule() function, and where
    other functions may call __schedule() directly.  Without the patch, 
    a warning message indicating "crash: cannot determing thread return 
    address" is displayed during invocation on x86_64 machines, and 
    backtraces of blocked tasks may have missing or invalid frames.
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Fix for running against live x86 kernels that were configured with
    CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START containing a value that is greater than its
    CONFIG_PHYSICAL_ALIGN value, and where the first symbol listed by
    /proc/kallsyms is not "_text".  Without the patch, the crash session
    fails during invocation with the error message "crash: vmlinux and
    /dev/mem do not match!" (or "/dev/crash" if applicable).  As a work-
    around, "/proc/kallsyms" can be entered on the command line, or the
    "--reloc=<size>" option could be used, but the fix obviates that
    requirement for live systems.  It should be noted that dumpfiles of
    kernels configured that way still do require that "/proc/kallsyms",
    or a copy of it, or alternatively the "--reloc=<size>" option, to
    be entered on the command line, as detailed in this changelog entry:
    http://people.redhat.com/anderson/crash.changelog.html#4_0_4_5
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Unlike other extension modules, the "sial.so" module must be built
    within a pre-built crash source tree because it uses header files
    from the embedded gdb module.  Therefore if a crash source tree is
    laid down, entered, and "make extensions" is entered without first
    building the crash utility, the build of sial.so build spews numerous
    error messages.  To avoid that, the sial.mk file has been modified to 
    check whether the embedded gdb build has been completed, and if it
    has not, just displays "sial.so: build failed: requires the crash 
    gdb-7.0 module".
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - If an extension module does not have its own <module>.mk file,
    and is built using the extensions/Makefile, then it will be compiled 
    with the -Wall flag.
    (anderson at redhat.com)
    
  - The "trace.so" extension module has been improved to use "trace.cmd"
    to implement the "trace show" option, instead of maintaining a
    redundant code base within the module itself.  The trace-cmd command
    is better, mature, and continually maintained.  The new "trace show" 
    option works like so:
      (1) builds trace.dat from the core file and dumps it to /tmp.
      (2) execs "trace-cmd report" upon the trace.dat file.
      (3) splices the output of trace-cmd to the user and unlinks the 
          temporary file.
    (laijs at cn.fujitsu.com)
 
  - Updates to the "trace.so" extension module to extract trace_bprintk()
    formats from a kernel core dump.  It handles both the current format 
    and a new format that will be pushed out after the merge window has 
    closed for Linux 2.6.40.  The new format is required for the kernel 
    debugfs to export the same bprintk data as well.  This means that the
    trace.so extension module will be able to extract more information 
    than trace-cmd itself can on a running kernel.
    (rostedt at goodmis.org)
 
  - Fix for the "gdb" command, or any command that resolves to a gdb
    command, to not strip quotation marks from the input line.  Without
    the patch, any gdb command whose arguments contain quotation marks, 
    (e.g. "printf") would fail because they get incorrectly stripped 
    from the input line. 
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Fix for the "p" command if its symbolic argument is a "char *" that 
    points to a static data string containing an "%" character.  Without 
    the patch, the command results in a segmentation violation.
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Fix for the "sys -c" option to display an error message if a known
    sys_call_table entry is not a valid system call address.  Without 
    the patch, the compromised system call entry is not displayed unless
    the crash debug mode is set to 1 or greater.  With the patch, the 
    system call number will be followed by an error message indicating 
    "invalid sys_call_table entry: <address> (<symbol-name>)".  This
    change is only applicable on architectures/kernels where the index of
    the sys_call_table array can be confirmed by debuginfo data, i.e., 
    is not a loose calculation based upon the next kernel symbol.
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Print a warning message if there is any inconsistency between the 
    kernel version strings found in the vmlinux file vs. the dumpfile 
    or live memory.  If a System.map file is used to correct the virtual
    addresses found in the vmlinux file, the message is not displayed.
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Fix for "kmem -v", and all other commands that search through the 
    kernel's mapped virtual address list, in x86_64 kernel versions from
    2.6.0 to 2.6.11.  Those kernels contained a "vmlist" and a separate 
    "mod_vmlist" list header, both of which point to list of vm_structs
    that described each contiguous block of mapped kernel memory.  2.6.12 
    and later x86_64 kernels consolidated both lists onto the "vmlist".  
    Without the patch, the list headed by "mod_vmlist" was not searched.
    (anderson at redhat.com)
 
  - Clarify the help page documentation for the "struct -l offset" option
    so that it does not imply that the address argument is necessarily 
    an embedded list_head pointer.  The "-l offset" option essentially 
    provides the capability of the kernel's container_of() macro, such 
    that the address of an embedded data structure can be used to display 
    its containing data structure.
    (anderson at redhat.com)

  Download from: http://people.redhat.com/anderson