Kernel Korner - Kprobes—a Kernel Debugger

Looking for a way to use some of the same debugging techniques in the kernel that you apply in user-space code? Here's how to bring debugging support to tricky kernel development problems.
Conclusion

The Kprobes patch helps a kernel developer debug any address within the kernel. Various patches are available from the Kprobes home page, including ones for setting watch points and for debugging user address locations. With proper use, Kprobes can become a powerful weapon in any kernel developer's arsenal.

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Richard J Moore and Andrew Morton for their valuable comments on the draft version of this article, to Manish P Fadnavis for his support and to Pramode C E, Shine Mohammed Jabbar and Chitkala Sethuraman for their feedback.

Resources for this article: /article/8136.

R. Krishnakumar loves to hack the Linux kernel. He works for Hewlett-Packard and received a bachelor's in Technology from Govt. Engg. College Thrissur. His home page is located at puggy.symonds.net/~krishnakumar. You can reach him at rkrishnakumar@gmail.com.

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Thank you Krishnakumar

Anonymous's picture

This is a very clear article about non-intrusive debug. This article enlighten me a lot and this is starting point for my current project (building a hot-patching framework)

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