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[RFA] crash while re-reading symbols from objfile on ppc-aix.
- From: Joel Brobecker <brobecker at adacore dot com>
- To: gdb-patches at sourceware dot org
- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 16:11:25 +0400
- Subject: [RFA] crash while re-reading symbols from objfile on ppc-aix.
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
Hello,
This patch aims at fixing the following problem, where the user:
. debugs its program
. makes a modification and rebuilds it *without exiting the debugger*
. returns to its debugging session and restarts the inferior
(this is mostly what reread.exp verifies)
In that situation, the debugger notices that the underlying executable
has changed and that re-reading its symbols is needed. Shortly after
displaying a message informing the user of the situation, GDB crashes:
(gdb) run
[...]
`/[...]/dest' has changed; re-reading symbols.
zsh: 13434922 segmentation fault (core dumped)
The crash occurs while trying to allocate some memory on the bfd_bfd
obstack. But, at some point in time, the whole obstack data gets
corrupted, nullified. So the memory allocation fails with a SIGILL
trying to call a function at a NULL address.
The corruption occurred because the region where the per_bfd data
got free'ed nearly after it got allocated! This is what happens,
in chronological order (see reread_symbols):
1. GDB notices that the executable has changed, decides to
re-read its symbols.
2. Opens a new bfd, unrefs the old one
3. Calls set_objfile_per_bfd (objfile);
4. Re-initializes the objfile's obstack:
obstack_init (&objfile->objfile_obstack);
I think that the normal behavior for set_objfile_per_bfd would
be to search for already-allocated shared per_bfd data, and
allocate new one if not found. The critical difference between
a platform such as x86_64-linuxe where it works, and ppc-aix,
where it doesn't lies in the fact that bfd-data sharing is not
activated on ppc-aix, and as a result, the per-bfd data gets
allocated on the objfile's obstack instead of in the bfd objalloc:
/* If the object requires gdb to do relocations, we simply fall
back to not sharing data across users. These cases are rare
enough that this seems reasonable. */
if (abfd != NULL && !gdb_bfd_requires_relocations (abfd))
{
storage = bfd_zalloc (abfd, sizeof (struct objfile_per_bfd_storage));
set_bfd_data (abfd, objfiles_bfd_data, storage);
}
else
storage = OBSTACK_ZALLOC (&objfile->objfile_obstack,
struct objfile_per_bfd_storage);
Allocating that per_bfd storage is of course nearly useless since
we end up free-ing right after in step (4) above. Eventually,
the memory region ends up being re-used, hence the corruption
leading to the crash.
This fix was simply to move the call to set_objfile_per_bfd after
the objfile's obstack re-initialization.
gdb/ChangeLog:
* symfile.c (reread_symbols): Move call to set_objfile_per_bfd
after re-initialization of OBJFILE's obstack.
Tested on x86_64-linux, no regression. Also tested on ppc-aix using
AdaCore's testsuite (expect hangs at the end of the test, on ppc-aix,
so I can't collect any result).
Ok to commit?
Thanks,
--
Joel
---
gdb/symfile.c | 8 ++++++--
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/gdb/symfile.c b/gdb/symfile.c
index 1307189..61e3e44 100644
--- a/gdb/symfile.c
+++ b/gdb/symfile.c
@@ -2591,13 +2591,17 @@ reread_symbols (void)
memset (&objfile->msymbol_demangled_hash, 0,
sizeof (objfile->msymbol_demangled_hash));
- set_objfile_per_bfd (objfile);
-
/* obstack_init also initializes the obstack so it is
empty. We could use obstack_specify_allocation but
gdb_obstack.h specifies the alloc/dealloc functions. */
obstack_init (&objfile->objfile_obstack);
+ /* set_objfile_per_bfd potentially allocates the per-bfd
+ data on the objfile's obstack (if sharing data across
+ multiple users is not possible), so it's important to
+ do it *after* the obstack has been initialized. */
+ set_objfile_per_bfd (objfile);
+
objfile->original_name = obstack_copy0 (&objfile->objfile_obstack,
original_name,
strlen (original_name));
--
1.8.1.2