From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Jun 28 11:17:49 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA19283 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 11:17:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay-4.mail.demon.net (relay-4.mail.demon.net [158.152.1.108]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA19270 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 11:17:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-4.mail.demon.net id az11518; 28 Jun 96 17:50 GMT Received: from jraynard.demon.co.uk ([158.152.42.77]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id ac26215; 28 Jun 96 18:14 +0100 Received: (from fhackers@localhost) by jraynard.demon.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA09787; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 01:49:59 GMT Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 01:49:59 GMT Message-Id: <199606280149.BAA09787@jraynard.demon.co.uk> From: James Raynard To: alk@think.com CC: jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <199606272030.PAA26920@compound.Think.COM> (message from Tony Kimball on Thu, 27 Jun 1996 15:30:57 -0500 (CDT)) Subject: Re: longstanding, woeful inadeqacy Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > : > Easier in what sense? It is essentially impossible to debug anything > : > that forks, since by the time you can attach to it, it has gone > : > veering wildly out of control. > : > : Not if you put a sleep loop in it > > And if I don't have source code? Or a compiler? > Or if the insertion of the sleep loop fixes the compiler bug > which I was trying to find in the first place? UT(K)SL and move the sleep loop into the exec() system call? > Or if the sleep loop prevents the process from meeting a > synchronization constraint which makes it impossible to > debug the original execution profile? Hmm. Maybe you could replace the exec()'d program with a wrapper that ktrace's it... Seriously though, it would be nice to get something like strace working for these cases, but /proc doesn't support features like system call tracing. -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland james@jraynard.demon.co.uk