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Subject: Re: ddb_enable="YES" by default?
From: Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@freebsd.org>
To: John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
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Cc: freebsd-current Current <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>,
 Brooks Davis <brooks@freebsd.org>
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On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 7:54 AM, John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> Probably at least 50% of the time when I work with a user on a bug report,
> I ask them to go into kgdb and run specific commands to extract more detailed
> info (print some struct, etc.).

Sure, I understand, but you are not working with every user who
encounters a kernel panic in FreeBSD.  For the average or casual
FreeBSD user, such as desktop
users of FreeBSD or PC-BSD, wouldn't it be better
to have ddb_enable="YES" be the default in FreeBSD?  The ddb script
there does a fairly reasonable
job of gathering some useful info which can be analyzed later, and
then rebooting the box.

For more expert users, or people developing products, they can set
ddb_enable="NO"
and do more advanced debugging.  Or hook into /etc/rc.d/ddb and define
a different
ddb script which doesn't do textdumps on kernel panic.

--
Craig