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Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 15:01:29 +0930
From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To: FreeBSD-arch@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Making ddb a kld
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A little over a year, I did some work for Sitara Networks.  In the
course of this work, I made ddb an lkm, in order to be able to load it
on a production system if needed.

I'm now in the process of merging Sitara's code, which is based on
3.2-RELEASE, into RELENG_4.  Sitara have generously agreed that we can
commit any fixes they have in their tree which are not vital to their
commercial interests.  The ddb mods would be one of them.  Do we want
to do this?

The pros and cons I see are:

Pro:

1.  We often get people who say "my system crashes.  Why".  On
    checking, there's no practical way to determine why, because they
    don't have a debugger in the system.

2.  Occasionally it's convenient to look at what's happening in a
    running system.  Admittedly, you have to freeze the system to use
    ddb, but it can be of use.

Con:

1.  This will require moving all the ddb code, which is scattered
    around the system, into a separate file.  I'm prepared to do the
    work, but it's possible that somebody would complain about the
    colour of the bikeshed.  Here's your chance.

Greg
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