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PR 49276 is fixed.  Rejoice.

    1: # Introduction
    2: 
    3: This HOWTO explains how to set up a test environment for symbolic
    4: debugging of the NetBSD kernel using a pair of QEMU virtual machines.
    5: 
    6: ## Prerequisites
    7: 
    8: You need a computer running an OS capable of cross-building NetBSD
    9: (the "host system").
   10: This can be NetBSD itself, Linux, or some other Unix-like OS.
   11: These instructions have been tested with NetBSD/amd64 6.1.4 and
   12: Debian 7 hosts.   There should be at least 20 gigabytes of available
   13: disk space.
   14: 
   15: If your host system is running NetBSD, install the following packages
   16: from pkgsrc:
   17: 
   18: * emulators/qemu >= 2.0.0nb4
   19: * misc/py-anita
   20: 
   21: If your host system uses a package system other than pkgsrc,
   22: use that to install cvs, make, gcc, qemu, the Python pexpect
   23: library, and genisoimage or mkisofs.  Also download and 
   24: install the most recent anita package from
   25: <http://www.gson.org/netbsd/anita/download/>.
   26: 
   27: ## Building the target system
   28: 
   29: Check out the NetBSD-current sources from CVS and build a full release of
   30: NetBSD-current/i386 or /amd64 with debug symbols using the build.sh
   31: script.  The i386 and amd64 ports are the preferred test platforms because
   32: sparc, the only other port supported by anita, is affected by a known bug,
   33: [[qemu bug 1399943|https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/+bug/1399943]].
   34: If you do the build in a directory other than /usr/src, 
   35: use the -fdebug-prefix-map option to ensure that the source file names embedded
   36: in the debug symbols point to /usr/src, which is where the sources will be
   37: installed on the target system.  For example:
   38: 
   39: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
   40:  $ CVSROOT=anoncvs@anoncvs.NetBSD.org:/cvsroot cvs checkout -A -P src
   41:  $ cd src
   42:  $ ./build.sh -j 4 -V MKDEBUG=YES -V COPTS="-g -fdebug-prefix-map=$(pwd)=/usr/src" -O ../obj -m i386 -U release sourcesets
   43: """]]
   44: 
   45: For best performance, change the number after "-j" to the number of CPU cores
   46: you have, or slightly more.
   47: 
   48: ## Installing the target system
   49: 
   50: Install the system in a virtual machine, including the debug symbols and source code:
   51: 
   52: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
   53:  $ cd ..
   54:  $ anita --workdir work --disk-size 4G --memory-size 256M \
   55:      --sets kern-GENERIC,modules,base,etc,comp,debug,games,man,misc,tests,text,syssrc,src,sharesrc,gnusrc \
   56:      install $(pwd)/obj/releasedir/i386/
   57: """]]
   58: 
   59: ## Booting the VMs
   60: 
   61: Next, start two qemu virtual machines, one to run the kernel being
   62: debugged (the "target VM") and another to run gdb (the "gdb VM").
   63: 
   64: The two VMs could be run on separate physical machines, but in this
   65: example, they are run on the same physical machine and share the same
   66: hard disk image.  This sharing is made possible by the "-snapshot"
   67: option to qemu, which ensures that the disk image is not written to by
   68: either VM.
   69: 
   70: First start the target VM, enabling qemu's built-in GDB target stub
   71: on TCP port 1234:
   72: 
   73: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
   74:  $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -snapshot -hda work/wd0.img -gdb tcp::1234
   75: """]]
   76: 
   77: If you don't want everyone on the Internet to be able to debug your
   78: target, make sure incoming connections on port 1234 are blocked in
   79: your firewall.
   80: 
   81: In a second terminal window, start the gdb VM:
   82: 
   83: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
   84:  $ qemu-system-i386 -nographic -snapshot -hda work/wd0.img
   85: """]]
   86: 
   87: Log in to the gdb VM as root and set up the network:
   88: 
   89: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
   90:  login: root
   91:  # dhcpcd
   92: """]]
   93: 
   94: Start gdb on the gdb VM and connect to the target:
   95: 
   96: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
   97:  # gdb /netbsd
   98:  (gdb) target remote my.host.name:1234
   99: """]]
  100: 
  101: where my.host.name is the domain name or IP address of the
  102: host system.
  103: 
  104: Now you should be able to get a stack trace and start debugging
  105: with full debug symbols and access to the source code:
  106: 
  107: [[!template  id=programlisting text="""
  108:  (gdb) where
  109:  (gdb) list
  110: """]]
  111: 
  112: If the stack trace prints very slowly (like 30 seconds per stack
  113: frame), it's likely because you are using a version of qemu where
  114: the user-mode networking code fails to disable the Nagle algorithm.
  115: This is fixed in the qemu in pkgsrc, but you may run into it if your
  116: qemu is not installed via pkgsrc.
  117: 
  118: ## Qemu tips
  119: 
  120: Here is a couple of useful qemu commands to know:
  121: 
  122: * Ctrl-a b will send a break which will make the NetBSD VM enter the ddb kernel debugger.
  123: 
  124: * Ctrl-a c will switch to the qemu monitor where you can enter commands like "quit" to exit qemu,
  125: or do things like saving/restoring the VM to/from a file.