2 User Mode Linux Core Team
3 Mon Nov 18 14:16:16 EST 2002
5 This document describes the use and abuse of Jeff Dike's User Mode
6 Linux: a port of the Linux kernel as a normal Intel Linux process.
7 ______________________________________________________________________
13 1.1 How is User Mode Linux Different?
14 1.2 Why Would I Want User Mode Linux?
16 2. Compiling the kernel and modules
18 2.1 Compiling the kernel
19 2.2 Compiling and installing kernel modules
20 2.3 Compiling and installing uml_utilities
22 3. Running UML and logging in
34 5. Setting up serial lines and consoles
36 5.1 Specifying the device
37 5.2 Specifying the channel
40 6. Setting up the network
44 6.3 Specifying ethernet addresses
45 6.4 UML interface setup
47 6.6 TUN/TAP with the uml_net helper
48 6.7 TUN/TAP with a preconfigured tap device
54 6.13 Setting up the host yourself
56 7. Sharing Filesystems between Virtual Machines
59 7.2 Using layered block devices
62 7.5 uml_moo : Merging a COW file with its backing file
64 8. Creating filesystems
66 8.1 Create the filesystem file
67 8.2 Assign the file to a UML device
68 8.3 Creating and mounting the filesystem
73 9.2 hostfs as the root filesystem
76 10. The Management Console
89 11.1 Starting the kernel under gdb
90 11.2 Examining sleeping processes
91 11.3 Running ddd on UML
92 11.4 Debugging modules
93 11.5 Attaching gdb to the kernel
94 11.6 Using alternate debuggers
96 12. Kernel debugging examples
98 12.1 The case of the hung fsck
99 12.2 Episode 2: The case of the hung fsck
101 13. What to do when UML doesn't work
103 13.1 Strange compilation errors when you build from source
105 13.3 A variety of panics and hangs with /tmp on a reiserfs filesystem
106 13.4 The compile fails with errors about conflicting types for 'open', 'dup', and 'waitpid'
107 13.5 UML doesn't work when /tmp is an NFS filesystem
108 13.6 UML hangs on boot when compiled with gprof support
109 13.7 syslogd dies with a SIGTERM on startup
110 13.8 TUN/TAP networking doesn't work on a 2.4 host
111 13.9 You can network to the host but not to other machines on the net
112 13.10 I have no root and I want to scream
113 13.11 UML build conflict between ptrace.h and ucontext.h
114 13.12 The UML BogoMips is exactly half the host's BogoMips
115 13.13 When you run UML, it immediately segfaults
116 13.14 xterms appear, then immediately disappear
117 13.15 Any other panic, hang, or strange behavior
119 14. Diagnosing Problems
121 14.1 Case 1 : Normal kernel panics
122 14.2 Case 2 : Tracing thread panics
123 14.3 Case 3 : Tracing thread panics caused by other threads
128 15.1 Code and Documentation
129 15.2 Flushing out bugs
130 15.3 Buglets and clean-ups
132 15.5 Other contributions
135 ______________________________________________________________________
137 1
\b1.
\b. I
\bIn
\bnt
\btr
\bro
\bod
\bdu
\buc
\bct
\bti
\bio
\bon
\bn
139 Welcome to User Mode Linux. It's going to be fun.
143 1
\b1.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. H
\bHo
\bow
\bw i
\bis
\bs U
\bUs
\bse
\ber
\br M
\bMo
\bod
\bde
\be L
\bLi
\bin
\bnu
\bux
\bx D
\bDi
\bif
\bff
\bfe
\ber
\bre
\ben
\bnt
\bt?
\b?
145 Normally, the Linux Kernel talks straight to your hardware (video
146 card, keyboard, hard drives, etc), and any programs which run ask the
147 kernel to operate the hardware, like so:
151 +-----------+-----------+----+
152 | Process 1 | Process 2 | ...|
153 +-----------+-----------+----+
155 +----------------------------+
157 +----------------------------+
162 The User Mode Linux Kernel is different; instead of talking to the
163 hardware, it talks to a `real' Linux kernel (called the `host kernel'
164 from now on), like any other program. Programs can then run inside
165 User-Mode Linux as if they were running under a normal kernel, like
172 +-----------+----------------+
173 | Process 1 | User-Mode Linux|
174 +----------------------------+
176 +----------------------------+
178 +----------------------------+
184 1
\b1.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. W
\bWh
\bhy
\by W
\bWo
\bou
\bul
\bld
\bd I
\bI W
\bWa
\ban
\bnt
\bt U
\bUs
\bse
\ber
\br M
\bMo
\bod
\bde
\be L
\bLi
\bin
\bnu
\bux
\bx?
\b?
187 1. If User Mode Linux crashes, your host kernel is still fine.
189 2. You can run a usermode kernel as a non-root user.
191 3. You can debug the User Mode Linux like any normal process.
193 4. You can run gprof (profiling) and gcov (coverage testing).
195 5. You can play with your kernel without breaking things.
197 6. You can use it as a sandbox for testing new apps.
199 7. You can try new development kernels safely.
201 8. You can run different distributions simultaneously.
203 9. It's extremely fun.
209 2
\b2.
\b. C
\bCo
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\bli
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhe
\be k
\bke
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl a
\ban
\bnd
\bd m
\bmo
\bod
\bdu
\bul
\ble
\bes
\bs
214 2
\b2.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. C
\bCo
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\bli
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhe
\be k
\bke
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl
217 Compiling the user mode kernel is just like compiling any other
218 kernel. Let's go through the steps, using 2.4.0-prerelease (current
219 as of this writing) as an example:
222 1. Download the latest UML patch from
224 the download page <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/
226 In this example, the file is uml-patch-2.4.0-prerelease.bz2.
229 2. Download the matching kernel from your favourite kernel mirror,
232 ftp://ftp.ca.kernel.org/pub/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.0-prerelease.tar.bz2
233 <ftp://ftp.ca.kernel.org/pub/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.0-prerelease.tar.bz2>
237 3. Make a directory and unpack the kernel into it.
258 tar -xzvf linux-2.4.0-prerelease.tar.bz2
265 4. Apply the patch using
275 bzcat uml-patch-2.4.0-prerelease.bz2 | patch -p1
282 5. Run your favorite config; `make xconfig ARCH=um' is the most
283 convenient. `make config ARCH=um' and 'make menuconfig ARCH=um'
284 will work as well. The defaults will give you a useful kernel. If
285 you want to change something, go ahead, it probably won't hurt
289 Note: If the host is configured with a 2G/2G address space split
290 rather than the usual 3G/1G split, then the packaged UML binaries
291 will not run. They will immediately segfault. See ``UML on 2G/2G
292 hosts'' for the scoop on running UML on your system.
296 6. Finish with `make linux ARCH=um': the result is a file called
297 `linux' in the top directory of your source tree.
299 Make sure that you don't build this kernel in /usr/src/linux. On some
300 distributions, /usr/include/asm is a link into this pool. The user-
301 mode build changes the other end of that link, and things that include
302 <asm/anything.h> stop compiling.
304 The sources are also available from cvs at the project's cvs page,
305 which has directions on getting the sources. You can also browse the
308 If you get the CVS sources, you will have to check them out into an
309 empty directory. You will then have to copy each file into the
310 corresponding directory in the appropriate kernel pool.
312 If you don't have the latest kernel pool, you can get the
313 corresponding user-mode sources with
316 host% cvs co -r v_2_3_x linux
321 where 'x' is the version in your pool. Note that you will not get the
322 bug fixes and enhancements that have gone into subsequent releases.
325 2
\b2.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. C
\bCo
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\bli
\bin
\bng
\bg a
\ban
\bnd
\bd i
\bin
\bns
\bst
\bta
\bal
\bll
\bli
\bin
\bng
\bg k
\bke
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl m
\bmo
\bod
\bdu
\bul
\ble
\bes
\bs
327 UML modules are built in the same way as the native kernel (with the
328 exception of the 'ARCH=um' that you always need for UML):
331 host% make modules ARCH=um
336 Any modules that you want to load into this kernel need to be built in
337 the user-mode pool. Modules from the native kernel won't work.
339 You can install them by using ftp or something to copy them into the
340 virtual machine and dropping them into /lib/modules/`uname -r`.
342 You can also get the kernel build process to install them as follows:
344 1. with the kernel not booted, mount the root filesystem in the top
345 level of the kernel pool:
348 host% mount root_fs mnt -o loop
359 make modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=`pwd`/mnt ARCH=um
366 3. unmount the filesystem
376 4. boot the kernel on it
379 When the system is booted, you can use insmod as usual to get the
380 modules into the kernel. A number of things have been loaded into UML
381 as modules, especially filesystems and network protocols and filters,
382 so most symbols which need to be exported probably already are.
383 However, if you do find symbols that need exporting, let us
384 <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/> know, and
385 they'll be "taken care of".
389 2
\b2.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. C
\bCo
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\bli
\bin
\bng
\bg a
\ban
\bnd
\bd i
\bin
\bns
\bst
\bta
\bal
\bll
\bli
\bin
\bng
\bg u
\bum
\bml
\bl_
\b_u
\but
\bti
\bil
\bli
\bit
\bti
\bie
\bes
\bs
391 Many features of the UML kernel require a user-space helper program,
392 so a uml_utilities package is distributed separately from the kernel
393 patch which provides these helpers. Included within this is:
395 +
\bo port-helper - Used by consoles which connect to xterms or ports
397 +
\bo tunctl - Configuration tool to create and delete tap devices
399 +
\bo uml_net - Setuid binary for automatic tap device configuration
401 +
\bo uml_switch - User-space virtual switch required for daemon
404 The uml_utilities tree is compiled with:
413 Note that UML kernel patches may require a specific version of the
414 uml_utilities distribution. If you don't keep up with the mailing
415 lists, ensure that you have the latest release of uml_utilities if you
416 are experiencing problems with your UML kernel, particularly when
417 dealing with consoles or command-line switches to the helper programs
426 3
\b3.
\b. R
\bRu
\bun
\bnn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg U
\bUM
\bML
\bL a
\ban
\bnd
\bd l
\blo
\bog
\bgg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg i
\bin
\bn
430 3
\b3.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. R
\bRu
\bun
\bnn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg U
\bUM
\bML
\bL
432 It runs on 2.2.15 or later, and all 2.4 kernels.
435 Booting UML is straightforward. Simply run 'linux': it will try to
436 mount the file `root_fs' in the current directory. You do not need to
437 run it as root. If your root filesystem is not named `root_fs', then
438 you need to put a `ubd0=root_fs_whatever' switch on the linux command
442 You will need a filesystem to boot UML from. There are a number
443 available for download from here <http://user-mode-
444 linux.sourceforge.net/> . There are also several tools
445 <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/> which can be
446 used to generate UML-compatible filesystem images from media.
447 The kernel will boot up and present you with a login prompt.
450 Note: If the host is configured with a 2G/2G address space split
451 rather than the usual 3G/1G split, then the packaged UML binaries will
452 not run. They will immediately segfault. See ``UML on 2G/2G hosts''
453 for the scoop on running UML on your system.
457 3
\b3.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. L
\bLo
\bog
\bgg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg i
\bin
\bn
461 The prepackaged filesystems have a root account with password 'root'
462 and a user account with password 'user'. The login banner will
463 generally tell you how to log in. So, you log in and you will find
464 yourself inside a little virtual machine. Our filesystems have a
465 variety of commands and utilities installed (and it is fairly easy to
466 add more), so you will have a lot of tools with which to poke around
469 There are a couple of other ways to log in:
471 +
\bo On a virtual console
475 Each virtual console that is configured (i.e. the device exists in
476 /dev and /etc/inittab runs a getty on it) will come up in its own
477 xterm. If you get tired of the xterms, read ``Setting up serial
478 lines and consoles'' to see how to attach the consoles to
479 something else, like host ptys.
483 +
\bo Over the serial line
486 In the boot output, find a line that looks like:
490 serial line 0 assigned pty /dev/ptyp1
495 Attach your favorite terminal program to the corresponding tty. I.e.
496 for minicom, the command would be
499 host% minicom -o -p /dev/ttyp1
509 If the network is running, then you can telnet to the virtual
510 machine and log in to it. See ``Setting up the network'' to learn
511 about setting up a virtual network.
513 When you're done using it, run halt, and the kernel will bring itself
514 down and the process will exit.
517 3
\b3.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. E
\bEx
\bxa
\bam
\bmp
\bpl
\ble
\bes
\bs
519 Here are some examples of UML in action:
521 +
\bo A login session <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/login.html>
523 +
\bo A virtual network <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/net.html>
531 4
\b4.
\b. U
\bUM
\bML
\bL o
\bon
\bn 2
\b2G
\bG/
\b/2
\b2G
\bG h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\bts
\bs
536 4
\b4.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. I
\bIn
\bnt
\btr
\bro
\bod
\bdu
\buc
\bct
\bti
\bio
\bon
\bn
539 Most Linux machines are configured so that the kernel occupies the
540 upper 1G (0xc0000000 - 0xffffffff) of the 4G address space and
541 processes use the lower 3G (0x00000000 - 0xbfffffff). However, some
542 machine are configured with a 2G/2G split, with the kernel occupying
543 the upper 2G (0x80000000 - 0xffffffff) and processes using the lower
544 2G (0x00000000 - 0x7fffffff).
549 4
\b4.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be p
\bpr
\bro
\bob
\bbl
\ble
\bem
\bm
552 The prebuilt UML binaries on this site will not run on 2G/2G hosts
553 because UML occupies the upper .5G of the 3G process address space
554 (0xa0000000 - 0xbfffffff). Obviously, on 2G/2G hosts, this is right
555 in the middle of the kernel address space, so UML won't even load - it
556 will immediately segfault.
561 4
\b4.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be s
\bso
\bol
\blu
\but
\bti
\bio
\bon
\bn
564 The fix for this is to rebuild UML from source after enabling
565 CONFIG_HOST_2G_2G (under 'General Setup'). This will cause UML to
566 load itself in the top .5G of that smaller process address space,
567 where it will run fine. See ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' if
568 you need help building UML from source.
579 5
\b5.
\b. S
\bSe
\bet
\btt
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg u
\bup
\bp s
\bse
\ber
\bri
\bia
\bal
\bl l
\bli
\bin
\bne
\bes
\bs a
\ban
\bnd
\bd c
\bco
\bon
\bns
\bso
\bol
\ble
\bes
\bs
582 It is possible to attach UML serial lines and consoles to many types
583 of host I/O channels by specifying them on the command line.
586 You can attach them to host ptys, ttys, file descriptors, and ports.
587 This allows you to do things like
589 +
\bo have a UML console appear on an unused host console,
591 +
\bo hook two virtual machines together by having one attach to a pty
592 and having the other attach to the corresponding tty
594 +
\bo make a virtual machine accessible from the net by attaching a
595 console to a port on the host.
598 The general format of the command line option is device=channel.
602 5
\b5.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. S
\bSp
\bpe
\bec
\bci
\bif
\bfy
\byi
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhe
\be d
\bde
\bev
\bvi
\bic
\bce
\be
604 Devices are specified with "con" or "ssl" (console or serial line,
605 respectively), optionally with a device number if you are talking
606 about a specific device.
609 Using just "con" or "ssl" describes all of the consoles or serial
610 lines. If you want to talk about console #3 or serial line #10, they
611 would be "con3" and "ssl10", respectively.
614 A specific device name will override a less general "con=" or "ssl=".
615 So, for example, you can assign a pty to each of the serial lines
616 except for the first two like this:
619 ssl=pty ssl0=tty:/dev/tty0 ssl1=tty:/dev/tty1
624 The specificity of the device name is all that matters; order on the
625 command line is irrelevant.
629 5
\b5.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. S
\bSp
\bpe
\bec
\bci
\bif
\bfy
\byi
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhe
\be c
\bch
\bha
\ban
\bnn
\bne
\bel
\bl
631 There are a number of different types of channels to attach a UML
632 device to, each with a different way of specifying exactly what to
635 +
\bo pseudo-terminals - device=pty pts terminals - device=pts
638 This will cause UML to allocate a free host pseudo-terminal for the
639 device. The terminal that it got will be announced in the boot
640 log. You access it by attaching a terminal program to the
643 +
\bo screen /dev/pts/n
645 +
\bo screen /dev/ttyxx
647 +
\bo minicom -o -p /dev/ttyxx - minicom seems not able to handle pts
650 +
\bo kermit - start it up, 'open' the device, then 'connect'
656 +
\bo terminals - device=tty:tty device file
659 This will make UML attach the device to the specified tty (i.e
667 will attach UML's console 1 to the host's /dev/tty3). If the tty that
668 you specify is the slave end of a tty/pty pair, something else must
669 have already opened the corresponding pty in order for this to work.
675 +
\bo xterms - device=xterm
678 UML will run an xterm and the device will be attached to it.
684 +
\bo Port - device=port:port number
687 This will attach the UML devices to the specified host port.
688 Attaching console 1 to the host's port 9000 would be done like
697 Attaching all the serial lines to that port would be done similarly:
705 You access these devices by telnetting to that port. Each active tel-
706 net session gets a different device. If there are more telnets to a
707 port than UML devices attached to it, then the extra telnet sessions
708 will block until an existing telnet detaches, or until another device
709 becomes active (i.e. by being activated in /etc/inittab).
711 This channel has the advantage that you can both attach multiple UML
712 devices to it and know how to access them without reading the UML boot
713 log. It is also unique in allowing access to a UML from remote
714 machines without requiring that the UML be networked. This could be
715 useful in allowing public access to UMLs because they would be
716 accessible from the net, but wouldn't need any kind of network
717 filtering or access control because they would have no network access.
720 If you attach the main console to a portal, then the UML boot will
721 appear to hang. In reality, it's waiting for a telnet to connect, at
722 which point the boot will proceed.
728 +
\bo already-existing file descriptors - device=file descriptor
731 If you set up a file descriptor on the UML command line, you can
732 attach a UML device to it. This is most commonly used to put the
733 main console back on stdin and stdout after assigning all the other
734 consoles to something else:
737 con0=fd:0,fd:1 con=pts
746 +
\bo Nothing - device=null
749 This allows the device to be opened, in contrast to 'none', but
750 reads will block, and writes will succeed and the data will be
757 +
\bo None - device=none
760 This causes the device to disappear.
764 You can also specify different input and output channels for a device
765 by putting a comma between them:
768 ssl3=tty:/dev/tty2,xterm
773 will cause serial line 3 to accept input on the host's /dev/tty3 and
774 display output on an xterm. That's a silly example - the most common
775 use of this syntax is to reattach the main console to stdin and stdout
779 If you decide to move the main console away from stdin/stdout, the
780 initial boot output will appear in the terminal that you're running
781 UML in. However, once the console driver has been officially
782 initialized, then the boot output will start appearing wherever you
783 specified that console 0 should be. That device will receive all
788 5
\b5.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. E
\bEx
\bxa
\bam
\bmp
\bpl
\ble
\bes
\bs
790 There are a number of interesting things you can do with this
794 First, this is how you get rid of those bleeding console xterms by
795 attaching them to host ptys:
798 con=pty con0=fd:0,fd:1
803 This will make a UML console take over an unused host virtual console,
804 so that when you switch to it, you will see the UML login prompt
805 rather than the host login prompt:
813 You can attach two virtual machines together with what amounts to a
814 serial line as follows:
816 Run one UML with a serial line attached to a pty -
824 Look at the boot log to see what pty it got (this example will assume
825 that it got /dev/ptyp1).
827 Boot the other UML with a serial line attached to the corresponding
836 Log in, make sure that it has no getty on that serial line, attach a
837 terminal program like minicom to it, and you should see the login
838 prompt of the other virtual machine.
841 6
\b6.
\b. S
\bSe
\bet
\btt
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg u
\bup
\bp t
\bth
\bhe
\be n
\bne
\bet
\btw
\bwo
\bor
\brk
\bk
845 This page describes how to set up the various transports and to
846 provide a UML instance with network access to the host, other machines
847 on the local net, and the rest of the net.
850 As of 2.4.5, UML networking has been completely redone to make it much
851 easier to set up, fix bugs, and add new features.
854 There is a new helper, uml_net, which does the host setup that
855 requires root privileges.
858 There are currently five transport types available for a UML virtual
859 machine to exchange packets with other hosts:
875 The TUN/TAP, ethertap, slip, and slirp transports allow a UML
876 instance to exchange packets with the host. They may be directed
877 to the host or the host may just act as a router to provide access
878 to other physical or virtual machines.
881 The pcap transport is a synthetic read-only interface, using the
882 libpcap binary to collect packets from interfaces on the host and
883 filter them. This is useful for building preconfigured traffic
884 monitors or sniffers.
887 The daemon and multicast transports provide a completely virtual
888 network to other virtual machines. This network is completely
889 disconnected from the physical network unless one of the virtual
890 machines on it is acting as a gateway.
893 With so many host transports, which one should you use? Here's when
894 you should use each one:
896 +
\bo ethertap - if you want access to the host networking and it is
899 +
\bo TUN/TAP - if you want access to the host networking and it is
900 running 2.4. Also, the TUN/TAP transport is able to use a
901 preconfigured device, allowing it to avoid using the setuid uml_net
902 helper, which is a security advantage.
904 +
\bo Multicast - if you want a purely virtual network and you don't want
905 to set up anything but the UML
907 +
\bo a switch daemon - if you want a purely virtual network and you
908 don't mind running the daemon in order to get somewhat better
911 +
\bo slip - there is no particular reason to run the slip backend unless
912 ethertap and TUN/TAP are just not available for some reason
914 +
\bo slirp - if you don't have root access on the host to setup
915 networking, or if you don't want to allocate an IP to your UML
917 +
\bo pcap - not much use for actual network connectivity, but great for
918 monitoring traffic on the host
920 Ethertap is available on 2.4 and works fine. TUN/TAP is preferred
921 to it because it has better performance and ethertap is officially
922 considered obsolete in 2.4. Also, the root helper only needs to
923 run occasionally for TUN/TAP, rather than handling every packet, as
924 it does with ethertap. This is a slight security advantage since
925 it provides fewer opportunities for a nasty UML user to somehow
926 exploit the helper's root privileges.
929 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. G
\bGe
\ben
\bne
\ber
\bra
\bal
\bl s
\bse
\bet
\btu
\bup
\bp
931 First, you must have the virtual network enabled in your UML. If are
932 running a prebuilt kernel from this site, everything is already
933 enabled. If you build the kernel yourself, under the "Network device
934 support" menu, enable "Network device support", and then the three
938 The next step is to provide a network device to the virtual machine.
939 This is done by describing it on the kernel command line.
941 The general format is
944 eth <n> = <transport> , <transport args>
949 For example, a virtual ethernet device may be attached to a host
950 ethertap device as follows:
953 eth0=ethertap,tap0,fe:fd:0:0:0:1,192.168.0.254
958 This sets up eth0 inside the virtual machine to attach itself to the
959 host /dev/tap0, assigns it an ethernet address, and assigns the host
960 tap0 interface an IP address.
964 Note that the IP address you assign to the host end of the tap device
965 must be different than the IP you assign to the eth device inside UML.
966 If you are short on IPs and don't want to consume two per UML, then
967 you can reuse the host's eth IP address for the host ends of the tap
968 devices. Internally, the UMLs must still get unique IPs for their eth
969 devices. You can also give the UMLs non-routable IPs (192.168.x.x or
970 10.x.x.x) and have the host masquerade them. This will let outgoing
971 connections work, but incoming connections won't without more work,
972 such as port forwarding from the host.
973 Also note that when you configure the host side of an interface, it is
974 only acting as a gateway. It will respond to pings sent to it
975 locally, but is not useful to do that since it's a host interface.
976 You are not talking to the UML when you ping that interface and get a
980 You can also add devices to a UML and remove them at runtime. See the
981 ``The Management Console'' page for details.
984 The sections below describe this in more detail.
987 Once you've decided how you're going to set up the devices, you boot
988 UML, log in, configure the UML side of the devices, and set up routes
989 to the outside world. At that point, you will be able to talk to any
990 other machines, physical or virtual, on the net.
993 If ifconfig inside UML fails and the network refuses to come up, run
994 tell you what went wrong.
998 6
\b6.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. U
\bUs
\bse
\ber
\brs
\bsp
\bpa
\bac
\bce
\be d
\bda
\bae
\bem
\bmo
\bon
\bns
\bs
1000 You will likely need the setuid helper, or the switch daemon, or both.
1001 They are both installed with the RPM and deb, so if you've installed
1002 either, you can skip the rest of this section.
1005 If not, then you need to check them out of CVS, build them, and
1006 install them. The helper is uml_net, in CVS /tools/uml_net, and the
1007 daemon is uml_switch, in CVS /tools/uml_router. They are both built
1008 with a plain 'make'. Both need to be installed in a directory that's
1009 in your path - /usr/bin is recommend. On top of that, uml_net needs
1014 6
\b6.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. S
\bSp
\bpe
\bec
\bci
\bif
\bfy
\byi
\bin
\bng
\bg e
\bet
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bet
\bt a
\bad
\bdd
\bdr
\bre
\bes
\bss
\bse
\bes
\bs
1016 Below, you will see that the TUN/TAP, ethertap, and daemon interfaces
1017 allow you to specify hardware addresses for the virtual ethernet
1018 devices. This is generally not necessary. If you don't have a
1019 specific reason to do it, you probably shouldn't. If one is not
1020 specified on the command line, the driver will assign one based on the
1021 device IP address. It will provide the address fe:fd:nn:nn:nn:nn
1022 where nn.nn.nn.nn is the device IP address. This is nearly always
1023 sufficient to guarantee a unique hardware address for the device. A
1024 couple of exceptions are:
1026 +
\bo Another set of virtual ethernet devices are on the same network and
1027 they are assigned hardware addresses using a different scheme which
1028 may conflict with the UML IP address-based scheme
1030 +
\bo You aren't going to use the device for IP networking, so you don't
1031 assign the device an IP address
1033 If you let the driver provide the hardware address, you should make
1034 sure that the device IP address is known before the interface is
1035 brought up. So, inside UML, this will guarantee that:
1040 ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.250 up
1045 If you decide to assign the hardware address yourself, make sure that
1046 the first byte of the address is even. Addresses with an odd first
1047 byte are broadcast addresses, which you don't want assigned to a
1052 6
\b6.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. U
\bUM
\bML
\bL i
\bin
\bnt
\bte
\ber
\brf
\bfa
\bac
\bce
\be s
\bse
\bet
\btu
\bup
\bp
1054 Once the network devices have been described on the command line, you
1055 should boot UML and log in.
1058 The first thing to do is bring the interface up:
1061 UML# ifconfig ethn ip-address up
1066 You should be able to ping the host at this point.
1069 To reach the rest of the world, you should set a default route to the
1073 UML# route add default gw host ip
1078 Again, with host ip of 192.168.0.4:
1081 UML# route add default gw 192.168.0.4
1086 This page used to recommend setting a network route to your local net.
1087 This is wrong, because it will cause UML to try to figure out hardware
1088 addresses of the local machines by arping on the interface to the
1089 host. Since that interface is basically a single strand of ethernet
1090 with two nodes on it (UML and the host) and arp requests don't cross
1091 networks, they will fail to elicit any responses. So, what you want
1092 is for UML to just blindly throw all packets at the host and let it
1093 figure out what to do with them, which is what leaving out the network
1094 route and adding the default route does.
1097 Note: If you can't communicate with other hosts on your physical
1098 ethernet, it's probably because of a network route that's
1099 automatically set up. If you run 'route -n' and see a route that
1105 Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
1106 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
1111 with a mask that's not 255.255.255.255, then replace it with a route
1116 route del -net 192.168.0.0 dev eth0 netmask 255.255.255.0
1124 route add -host 192.168.0.4 dev eth0
1129 This, plus the default route to the host, will allow UML to exchange
1130 packets with any machine on your ethernet.
1134 6
\b6.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. M
\bMu
\bul
\blt
\bti
\bic
\bca
\bas
\bst
\bt
1136 The simplest way to set up a virtual network between multiple UMLs is
1137 to use the mcast transport. This was written by Harald Welte and is
1138 present in UML version 2.4.5-5um and later. Your system must have
1139 multicast enabled in the kernel and there must be a multicast-capable
1140 network device on the host. Normally, this is eth0, but if there is
1141 no ethernet card on the host, then you will likely get strange error
1142 messages when you bring the device up inside UML.
1145 To use it, run two UMLs with
1153 on their command lines. Log in, configure the ethernet device in each
1154 machine with different IP addresses:
1157 UML1# ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.254
1164 UML2# ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.253
1169 and they should be able to talk to each other.
1171 The full set of command line options for this transport are
1175 ethn=mcast,ethernet address,multicast
1176 address,multicast port,ttl
1181 Harald's original README is here <http://user-mode-linux.source-
1182 forge.net/> and explains these in detail, as well as
1185 There is also a related point-to-point only "ucast" transport.
1186 This is useful when your network does not support multicast, and
1187 all network connections are simple point to point links.
1189 The full set of command line options for this transport are
1192 ethn=ucast,ethernet address,remote address,listen port,remote port
1197 6
\b6.
\b.6
\b6.
\b. T
\bTU
\bUN
\bN/
\b/T
\bTA
\bAP
\bP w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh t
\bth
\bhe
\be u
\bum
\bml
\bl_
\b_n
\bne
\bet
\bt h
\bhe
\bel
\blp
\bpe
\ber
\br
1199 TUN/TAP is the preferred mechanism on 2.4 to exchange packets with the
1200 host. The TUN/TAP backend has been in UML since 2.4.9-3um.
1203 The easiest way to get up and running is to let the setuid uml_net
1204 helper do the host setup for you. This involves insmod-ing the tun.o
1205 module if necessary, configuring the device, and setting up IP
1206 forwarding, routing, and proxy arp. If you are new to UML networking,
1207 do this first. If you're concerned about the security implications of
1208 the setuid helper, use it to get up and running, then read the next
1209 section to see how to have UML use a preconfigured tap device, which
1210 avoids the use of uml_net.
1213 If you specify an IP address for the host side of the device, the
1214 uml_net helper will do all necessary setup on the host - the only
1215 requirement is that TUN/TAP be available, either built in to the host
1216 kernel or as the tun.o module.
1218 The format of the command line switch to attach a device to a TUN/TAP
1222 eth <n> =tuntap,,, <IP address>
1227 For example, this argument will attach the UML's eth0 to the next
1228 available tap device and assign an ethernet address to it based on its
1232 eth0=tuntap,,,192.168.0.254
1239 Note that the IP address that must be used for the eth device inside
1240 UML is fixed by the routing and proxy arp that is set up on the
1241 TUN/TAP device on the host. You can use a different one, but it won't
1242 work because reply packets won't reach the UML. This is a feature.
1243 It prevents a nasty UML user from doing things like setting the UML IP
1244 to the same as the network's nameserver or mail server.
1247 There are a couple potential problems with running the TUN/TAP
1248 transport on a 2.4 host kernel
1250 +
\bo TUN/TAP seems not to work on 2.4.3 and earlier. Upgrade the host
1251 kernel or use the ethertap transport.
1253 +
\bo With an upgraded kernel, TUN/TAP may fail with
1256 File descriptor in bad state
1261 This is due to a header mismatch between the upgraded kernel and the
1262 kernel that was originally installed on the machine. The fix is to
1263 make sure that /usr/src/linux points to the headers for the running
1266 These were pointed out by Tim Robinson <timro at trkr dot net> in
1267 <http://www.geocrawler.com/> name="this uml-
1272 6
\b6.
\b.7
\b7.
\b. T
\bTU
\bUN
\bN/
\b/T
\bTA
\bAP
\bP w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh a
\ba p
\bpr
\bre
\bec
\bco
\bon
\bnf
\bfi
\big
\bgu
\bur
\bre
\bed
\bd t
\bta
\bap
\bp d
\bde
\bev
\bvi
\bic
\bce
\be
1274 If you prefer not to have UML use uml_net (which is somewhat
1275 insecure), with UML 2.4.17-11, you can set up a TUN/TAP device
1276 beforehand. The setup needs to be done as root, but once that's done,
1277 there is no need for root assistance. Setting up the device is done
1280 +
\bo Create the device with tunctl (available from the UML utilities
1291 where uid is the user id or username that UML will be run as. This
1292 will tell you what device was created.
1294 +
\bo Configure the device IP (change IP addresses and device name to
1300 host# ifconfig tap0 192.168.0.254 up
1306 +
\bo Set up routing and arping if desired - this is my recipe, there are
1307 other ways of doing the same thing
1311 bash -c 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward'
1314 route add -host 192.168.0.253 dev tap0
1322 bash -c 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tap0/proxy_arp'
1330 arp -Ds 192.168.0.253 eth0 pub
1335 Note that this must be done every time the host boots - this configu-
1336 ration is not stored across host reboots. So, it's probably a good
1337 idea to stick it in an rc file. An even better idea would be a little
1338 utility which reads the information from a config file and sets up
1339 devices at boot time.
1341 +
\bo Rather than using up two IPs and ARPing for one of them, you can
1342 also provide direct access to your LAN by the UML by using a
1355 ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 promisc up
1363 ifconfig tap0 0.0.0.0 promisc up
1371 ifconfig br0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
1396 brctl sethello br0 1
1404 brctl addif br0 eth0
1412 brctl addif br0 tap0
1417 Note that 'br0' should be setup using ifconfig with the existing IP
1418 address of eth0, as eth0 no longer has its own IP.
1423 Also, the /dev/net/tun device must be writable by the user running
1424 UML in order for the UML to use the device that's been configured
1425 for it. The simplest thing to do is
1428 host# chmod 666 /dev/net/tun
1433 Making it world-writable looks bad, but it seems not to be
1434 exploitable as a security hole. However, it does allow anyone to cre-
1435 ate useless tap devices (useless because they can't configure them),
1436 which is a DOS attack. A somewhat more secure alternative would to be
1437 to create a group containing all the users who have preconfigured tap
1438 devices and chgrp /dev/net/tun to that group with mode 664 or 660.
1441 +
\bo Once the device is set up, run UML with 'eth0=tuntap,device name'
1442 (i.e. 'eth0=tuntap,tap0') on the command line (or do it with the
1443 mconsole config command).
1445 +
\bo Bring the eth device up in UML and you're in business.
1447 If you don't want that tap device any more, you can make it non-
1451 host# tunctl -d tap device
1456 Finally, tunctl has a -b (for brief mode) switch which causes it to
1457 output only the name of the tap device it created. This makes it
1458 suitable for capture by a script:
1461 host# TAP=`tunctl -u 1000 -b`
1468 6
\b6.
\b.8
\b8.
\b. E
\bEt
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\brt
\bta
\bap
\bp
1470 Ethertap is the general mechanism on 2.2 for userspace processes to
1471 exchange packets with the kernel.
1475 To use this transport, you need to describe the virtual network device
1476 on the UML command line. The general format for this is
1479 eth <n> =ethertap, <device> , <ethernet address> , <tap IP address>
1484 So, the previous example
1487 eth0=ethertap,tap0,fe:fd:0:0:0:1,192.168.0.254
1492 attaches the UML eth0 device to the host /dev/tap0, assigns it the
1493 ethernet address fe:fd:0:0:0:1, and assigns the IP address
1494 192.168.0.254 to the tap device.
1498 The tap device is mandatory, but the others are optional. If the
1499 ethernet address is omitted, one will be assigned to it.
1502 The presence of the tap IP address will cause the helper to run and do
1503 whatever host setup is needed to allow the virtual machine to
1504 communicate with the outside world. If you're not sure you know what
1505 you're doing, this is the way to go.
1508 If it is absent, then you must configure the tap device and whatever
1509 arping and routing you will need on the host. However, even in this
1510 case, the uml_net helper still needs to be in your path and it must be
1511 setuid root if you're not running UML as root. This is because the
1512 tap device doesn't support SIGIO, which UML needs in order to use
1513 something as a source of input. So, the helper is used as a
1514 convenient asynchronous IO thread.
1516 If you're using the uml_net helper, you can ignore the following host
1517 setup - uml_net will do it for you. You just need to make sure you
1518 have ethertap available, either built in to the host kernel or
1519 available as a module.
1522 If you want to set things up yourself, you need to make sure that the
1523 appropriate /dev entry exists. If it doesn't, become root and create
1527 mknod /dev/tap <minor> c 36 <minor> + 16
1532 For example, this is how to create /dev/tap0:
1535 mknod /dev/tap0 c 36 0 + 16
1540 You also need to make sure that the host kernel has ethertap support.
1541 If ethertap is enabled as a module, you apparently need to insmod
1542 ethertap once for each ethertap device you want to enable. So,
1551 will give you the tap0 interface. To get the tap1 interface, you need
1556 insmod ethertap unit=1 -o ethertap1
1564 6
\b6.
\b.9
\b9.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be s
\bsw
\bwi
\bit
\btc
\bch
\bh d
\bda
\bae
\bem
\bmo
\bon
\bn
1566 N
\bNo
\bot
\bte
\be: This is the daemon formerly known as uml_router, but which was
1567 renamed so the network weenies of the world would stop growling at me.
1570 The switch daemon, uml_switch, provides a mechanism for creating a
1571 totally virtual network. By default, it provides no connection to the
1572 host network (but see -tap, below).
1575 The first thing you need to do is run the daemon. Running it with no
1576 arguments will make it listen on a default pair of unix domain
1580 If you want it to listen on a different pair of sockets, use
1583 -unix control socket data socket
1589 If you want it to act as a hub rather than a switch, use
1598 If you want the switch to be connected to host networking (allowing
1599 the umls to get access to the outside world through the host), use
1608 Note that the tap device must be preconfigured (see "TUN/TAP with a
1609 preconfigured tap device", above). If you're using a different tap
1610 device than tap0, specify that instead of tap0.
1613 uml_switch can be backgrounded as follows
1617 uml_switch [ options ] < /dev/null > /dev/null
1622 The reason it doesn't background by default is that it listens to
1623 stdin for EOF. When it sees that, it exits.
1626 The general format of the kernel command line switch is
1630 ethn=daemon,ethernet address,socket
1631 type,control socket,data socket
1636 You can leave off everything except the 'daemon'. You only need to
1637 specify the ethernet address if the one that will be assigned to it
1638 isn't acceptable for some reason. The rest of the arguments describe
1639 how to communicate with the daemon. You should only specify them if
1640 you told the daemon to use different sockets than the default. So, if
1641 you ran the daemon with no arguments, running the UML on the same
1648 will cause the eth0 driver to attach itself to the daemon correctly.
1652 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b10
\b0.
\b. S
\bSl
\bli
\bip
\bp
1654 Slip is another, less general, mechanism for a process to communicate
1655 with the host networking. In contrast to the ethertap interface,
1656 which exchanges ethernet frames with the host and can be used to
1657 transport any higher-level protocol, it can only be used to transport
1661 The general format of the command line switch is
1670 The slip IP argument is the IP address that will be assigned to the
1671 host end of the slip device. If it is specified, the helper will run
1672 and will set up the host so that the virtual machine can reach it and
1673 the rest of the network.
1676 There are some oddities with this interface that you should be aware
1677 of. You should only specify one slip device on a given virtual
1678 machine, and its name inside UML will be 'umn', not 'eth0' or whatever
1679 you specified on the command line. These problems will be fixed at
1684 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b11
\b1.
\b. S
\bSl
\bli
\bir
\brp
\bp
1686 slirp uses an external program, usually /usr/bin/slirp, to provide IP
1687 only networking connectivity through the host. This is similar to IP
1688 masquerading with a firewall, although the translation is performed in
1689 user-space, rather than by the kernel. As slirp does not set up any
1690 interfaces on the host, or changes routing, slirp does not require
1691 root access or setuid binaries on the host.
1694 The general format of the command line switch for slirp is:
1698 ethn=slirp,ethernet address,slirp path
1703 The ethernet address is optional, as UML will set up the interface
1704 with an ethernet address based upon the initial IP address of the
1705 interface. The slirp path is generally /usr/bin/slirp, although it
1706 will depend on distribution.
1709 The slirp program can have a number of options passed to the command
1710 line and we can't add them to the UML command line, as they will be
1711 parsed incorrectly. Instead, a wrapper shell script can be written or
1712 the options inserted into the /.slirprc file. More information on
1713 all of the slirp options can be found in its man pages.
1716 The eth0 interface on UML should be set up with the IP 10.2.0.15,
1717 although you can use anything as long as it is not used by a network
1718 you will be connecting to. The default route on UML should be set to
1723 route add default dev eth0
1728 slirp provides a number of useful IP addresses which can be used by
1729 UML, such as 10.0.2.3 which is an alias for the DNS server specified
1730 in /etc/resolv.conf on the host or the IP given in the 'dns' option
1734 Even with a baudrate setting higher than 115200, the slirp connection
1735 is limited to 115200. If you need it to go faster, the slirp binary
1736 needs to be compiled with FULL_BOLT defined in config.h.
1740 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b12
\b2.
\b. p
\bpc
\bca
\bap
\bp
1742 The pcap transport is attached to a UML ethernet device on the command
1743 line or with uml_mconsole with the following syntax:
1747 ethn=pcap,host interface,filter
1748 expression,option1,option2
1753 The expression and options are optional.
1756 The interface is whatever network device on the host you want to
1757 sniff. The expression is a pcap filter expression, which is also what
1758 tcpdump uses, so if you know how to specify tcpdump filters, you will
1759 use the same expressions here. The options are up to two of
1760 'promisc', control whether pcap puts the host interface into
1761 promiscuous mode. 'optimize' and 'nooptimize' control whether the pcap
1762 expression optimizer is used.
1775 will cause the UML eth0 to emit all tcp packets on the host eth0 and
1776 the UML eth1 to emit all non-tcp packets on the host eth0.
1780 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b13
\b3.
\b. S
\bSe
\bet
\btt
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg u
\bup
\bp t
\bth
\bhe
\be h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\bt y
\byo
\bou
\bur
\brs
\bse
\bel
\blf
\bf
1782 If you don't specify an address for the host side of the ethertap or
1783 slip device, UML won't do any setup on the host. So this is what is
1784 needed to get things working (the examples use a host-side IP of
1785 192.168.0.251 and a UML-side IP of 192.168.0.250 - adjust to suit your
1788 +
\bo The device needs to be configured with its IP address. Tap devices
1789 are also configured with an mtu of 1484. Slip devices are
1790 configured with a point-to-point address pointing at the UML ip
1794 host# ifconfig tap0 arp mtu 1484 192.168.0.251 up
1802 ifconfig sl0 192.168.0.251 pointopoint 192.168.0.250 up
1808 +
\bo If a tap device is being set up, a route is set to the UML IP.
1811 UML# route add -host 192.168.0.250 gw 192.168.0.251
1817 +
\bo To allow other hosts on your network to see the virtual machine,
1818 proxy arp is set up for it.
1821 host# arp -Ds 192.168.0.250 eth0 pub
1827 +
\bo Finally, the host is set up to route packets.
1830 host# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
1841 7
\b7.
\b. S
\bSh
\bha
\bar
\bri
\bin
\bng
\bg F
\bFi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bms
\bs b
\bbe
\bet
\btw
\bwe
\bee
\ben
\bn V
\bVi
\bir
\brt
\btu
\bua
\bal
\bl M
\bMa
\bac
\bch
\bhi
\bin
\bne
\bes
\bs
1846 7
\b7.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. A
\bA w
\bwa
\bar
\brn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg
1848 Don't attempt to share filesystems simply by booting two UMLs from the
1849 same file. That's the same thing as booting two physical machines
1850 from a shared disk. It will result in filesystem corruption.
1854 7
\b7.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. U
\bUs
\bsi
\bin
\bng
\bg l
\bla
\bay
\bye
\ber
\bre
\bed
\bd b
\bbl
\blo
\boc
\bck
\bk d
\bde
\bev
\bvi
\bic
\bce
\bes
\bs
1856 The way to share a filesystem between two virtual machines is to use
1857 the copy-on-write (COW) layering capability of the ubd block driver.
1858 As of 2.4.6-2um, the driver supports layering a read-write private
1859 device over a read-only shared device. A machine's writes are stored
1860 in the private device, while reads come from either device - the
1861 private one if the requested block is valid in it, the shared one if
1862 not. Using this scheme, the majority of data which is unchanged is
1863 shared between an arbitrary number of virtual machines, each of which
1864 has a much smaller file containing the changes that it has made. With
1865 a large number of UMLs booting from a large root filesystem, this
1866 leads to a huge disk space saving. It will also help performance,
1867 since the host will be able to cache the shared data using a much
1868 smaller amount of memory, so UML disk requests will be served from the
1869 host's memory rather than its disks.
1874 To add a copy-on-write layer to an existing block device file, simply
1875 add the name of the COW file to the appropriate ubd switch:
1878 ubd0=root_fs_cow,root_fs_debian_22
1883 where 'root_fs_cow' is the private COW file and 'root_fs_debian_22' is
1884 the existing shared filesystem. The COW file need not exist. If it
1885 doesn't, the driver will create and initialize it. Once the COW file
1886 has been initialized, it can be used on its own on the command line:
1894 The name of the backing file is stored in the COW file header, so it
1895 would be redundant to continue specifying it on the command line.
1899 7
\b7.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. N
\bNo
\bot
\bte
\be!
\b!
1901 When checking the size of the COW file in order to see the gobs of
1902 space that you're saving, make sure you use 'ls -ls' to see the actual
1903 disk consumption rather than the length of the file. The COW file is
1904 sparse, so the length will be very different from the disk usage.
1905 Here is a 'ls -l' of a COW file and backing file from one boot and
1907 host% ls -l cow.debian debian2.2
1908 -rw-r--r-- 1 jdike jdike 492504064 Aug 6 21:16 cow.debian
1909 -rwxrw-rw- 1 jdike jdike 537919488 Aug 6 20:42 debian2.2
1914 Doesn't look like much saved space, does it? Well, here's 'ls -ls':
1917 host% ls -ls cow.debian debian2.2
1918 880 -rw-r--r-- 1 jdike jdike 492504064 Aug 6 21:16 cow.debian
1919 525832 -rwxrw-rw- 1 jdike jdike 537919488 Aug 6 20:42 debian2.2
1924 Now, you can see that the COW file has less than a meg of disk, rather
1929 7
\b7.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. A
\bAn
\bno
\bot
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\br w
\bwa
\bar
\brn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg
1931 Once a filesystem is being used as a readonly backing file for a COW
1932 file, do not boot directly from it or modify it in any way. Doing so
1933 will invalidate any COW files that are using it. The mtime and size
1934 of the backing file are stored in the COW file header at its creation,
1935 and they must continue to match. If they don't, the driver will
1936 refuse to use the COW file.
1941 If you attempt to evade this restriction by changing either the
1942 backing file or the COW header by hand, you will get a corrupted
1948 Among other things, this means that upgrading the distribution in a
1949 backing file and expecting that all of the COW files using it will see
1950 the upgrade will not work.
1955 7
\b7.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. u
\bum
\bml
\bl_
\b_m
\bmo
\boo
\bo :
\b: M
\bMe
\ber
\brg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg a
\ba C
\bCO
\bOW
\bW f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\be w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh i
\bit
\bts
\bs b
\bba
\bac
\bck
\bki
\bin
\bng
\bg f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\be
1957 Depending on how you use UML and COW devices, it may be advisable to
1958 merge the changes in the COW file into the backing file every once in
1964 The utility that does this is uml_moo. Its usage is
1967 host% uml_moo COW file new backing file
1972 There's no need to specify the backing file since that information is
1973 already in the COW file header. If you're paranoid, boot the new
1974 merged file, and if you're happy with it, move it over the old backing
1980 uml_moo creates a new backing file by default as a safety measure. It
1981 also has a destructive merge option which will merge the COW file
1982 directly into its current backing file. This is really only usable
1983 when the backing file only has one COW file associated with it. If
1984 there are multiple COWs associated with a backing file, a -d merge of
1985 one of them will invalidate all of the others. However, it is
1986 convenient if you're short of disk space, and it should also be
1987 noticeably faster than a non-destructive merge.
1992 uml_moo is installed with the UML deb and RPM. If you didn't install
1993 UML from one of those packages, you can also get it from the UML
1994 utilities <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/
1995 utilities> tar file in tools/moo.
2004 8
\b8.
\b. C
\bCr
\bre
\bea
\bat
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bms
\bs
2007 You may want to create and mount new UML filesystems, either because
2008 your root filesystem isn't large enough or because you want to use a
2009 filesystem other than ext2.
2012 This was written on the occasion of reiserfs being included in the
2013 2.4.1 kernel pool, and therefore the 2.4.1 UML, so the examples will
2014 talk about reiserfs. This information is generic, and the examples
2015 should be easy to translate to the filesystem of your choice.
2018 8
\b8.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. C
\bCr
\bre
\bea
\bat
\bte
\be t
\bth
\bhe
\be f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bm f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\be
2020 dd is your friend. All you need to do is tell dd to create an empty
2021 file of the appropriate size. I usually make it sparse to save time
2022 and to avoid allocating disk space until it's actually used. For
2023 example, the following command will create a sparse 100 meg file full
2028 dd if=/dev/zero of=new_filesystem seek=100 count=1 bs=1M
2035 8
\b8.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. A
\bAs
\bss
\bsi
\big
\bgn
\bn t
\bth
\bhe
\be f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\be t
\bto
\bo a
\ba U
\bUM
\bML
\bL d
\bde
\bev
\bvi
\bic
\bce
\be
2037 Add an argument like the following to the UML command line:
2044 making sure that you use an unassigned ubd device number.
2048 8
\b8.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. C
\bCr
\bre
\bea
\bat
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg a
\ban
\bnd
\bd m
\bmo
\bou
\bun
\bnt
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhe
\be f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bm
2050 Make sure that the filesystem is available, either by being built into
2051 the kernel, or available as a module, then boot up UML and log in. If
2052 the root filesystem doesn't have the filesystem utilities (mkfs, fsck,
2053 etc), then get them into UML by way of the net or hostfs.
2056 Make the new filesystem on the device assigned to the new file:
2059 host# mkreiserfs /dev/ubd/4
2062 <----------- MKREISERFSv2 ----------->
2064 ReiserFS version 3.6.25
2065 Block size 4096 bytes
2068 Journal - 8192 blocks (18-8209), journal header is in block 8210
2072 ATTENTION: ALL DATA WILL BE LOST ON '/dev/ubd/4'! (y/n)y
2073 journal size 8192 (from 18)
2074 Initializing journal - 0%....20%....40%....60%....80%....100%
2084 mount /dev/ubd/4 /mnt
2089 and you're in business.
2099 9
\b9.
\b. H
\bHo
\bos
\bst
\bt f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\be a
\bac
\bcc
\bce
\bes
\bss
\bs
2102 If you want to access files on the host machine from inside UML, you
2103 can treat it as a separate machine and either nfs mount directories
2104 from the host or copy files into the virtual machine with scp or rcp.
2105 However, since UML is running on the host, it can access those
2106 files just like any other process and make them available inside the
2107 virtual machine without needing to use the network.
2110 This is now possible with the hostfs virtual filesystem. With it, you
2111 can mount a host directory into the UML filesystem and access the
2112 files contained in it just as you would on the host.
2115 9
\b9.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. U
\bUs
\bsi
\bin
\bng
\bg h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\btf
\bfs
\bs
2117 To begin with, make sure that hostfs is available inside the virtual
2121 UML# cat /proc/filesystems
2125 . hostfs should be listed. If it's not, either rebuild the kernel
2126 with hostfs configured into it or make sure that hostfs is built as a
2127 module and available inside the virtual machine, and insmod it.
2130 Now all you need to do is run mount:
2133 UML# mount none /mnt/host -t hostfs
2138 will mount the host's / on the virtual machine's /mnt/host.
2141 If you don't want to mount the host root directory, then you can
2142 specify a subdirectory to mount with the -o switch to mount:
2145 UML# mount none /mnt/home -t hostfs -o /home
2150 will mount the hosts's /home on the virtual machine's /mnt/home.
2154 9
\b9.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\btf
\bfs
\bs a
\bas
\bs t
\bth
\bhe
\be r
\bro
\boo
\bot
\bt f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bm
2156 It's possible to boot from a directory hierarchy on the host using
2157 hostfs rather than using the standard filesystem in a file.
2159 To start, you need that hierarchy. The easiest way is to loop mount
2160 an existing root_fs file:
2163 host# mount root_fs uml_root_dir -o loop
2168 You need to change the filesystem type of / in etc/fstab to be
2169 'hostfs', so that line looks like this:
2171 /dev/ubd/0 / hostfs defaults 1 1
2176 Then you need to chown to yourself all the files in that directory
2177 that are owned by root. This worked for me:
2180 host# find . -uid 0 -exec chown jdike {} \;
2185 Next, make sure that your UML kernel has hostfs compiled in, not as a
2186 module. Then run UML with the boot device pointing at that directory:
2189 ubd0=/path/to/uml/root/directory
2194 UML should then boot as it does normally.
2197 9
\b9.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. B
\bBu
\bui
\bil
\bld
\bdi
\bin
\bng
\bg h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\btf
\bfs
\bs
2199 If you need to build hostfs because it's not in your kernel, you have
2204 +
\bo Compiling hostfs into the kernel:
2207 Reconfigure the kernel and set the 'Host filesystem' option under
2210 +
\bo Compiling hostfs as a module:
2213 Reconfigure the kernel and set the 'Host filesystem' option under
2214 be in arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o. Install that in
2215 /lib/modules/`uname -r`/fs in the virtual machine, boot it up, and
2231 1
\b10
\b0.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be M
\bMa
\ban
\bna
\bag
\bge
\bem
\bme
\ben
\bnt
\bt C
\bCo
\bon
\bns
\bso
\bol
\ble
\be
2235 The UML management console is a low-level interface to the kernel,
2236 somewhat like the i386 SysRq interface. Since there is a full-blown
2237 operating system under UML, there is much greater flexibility possible
2238 than with the SysRq mechanism.
2241 There are a number of things you can do with the mconsole interface:
2243 +
\bo get the kernel version
2245 +
\bo add and remove devices
2247 +
\bo halt or reboot the machine
2249 +
\bo Send SysRq commands
2251 +
\bo Pause and resume the UML
2254 You need the mconsole client (uml_mconsole) which is present in CVS
2255 (/tools/mconsole) in 2.4.5-9um and later, and will be in the RPM in
2259 You also need CONFIG_MCONSOLE (under 'General Setup') enabled in UML.
2260 When you boot UML, you'll see a line like:
2263 mconsole initialized on /home/jdike/.uml/umlNJ32yL/mconsole
2268 If you specify a unique machine id one the UML command line, i.e.
2279 mconsole initialized on /home/jdike/.uml/debian/mconsole
2284 That file is the socket that uml_mconsole will use to communicate with
2285 UML. Run it with either the umid or the full path as its argument:
2288 host% uml_mconsole debian
2296 host% uml_mconsole /home/jdike/.uml/debian/mconsole
2301 You'll get a prompt, at which you can run one of these commands:
2324 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. v
\bve
\ber
\brs
\bsi
\bio
\bon
\bn
2326 This takes no arguments. It prints the UML version.
2330 OK Linux usermode 2.4.5-9um #1 Wed Jun 20 22:47:08 EDT 2001 i686
2335 There are a couple actual uses for this. It's a simple no-op which
2336 can be used to check that a UML is running. It's also a way of
2337 sending an interrupt to the UML. This is sometimes useful on SMP
2338 hosts, where there's a bug which causes signals to UML to be lost,
2339 often causing it to appear to hang. Sending such a UML the mconsole
2340 version command is a good way to 'wake it up' before networking has
2341 been enabled, as it does not do anything to the function of the UML.
2345 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. h
\bha
\bal
\blt
\bt a
\ban
\bnd
\bd r
\bre
\beb
\bbo
\boo
\bot
\bt
2347 These take no arguments. They shut the machine down immediately, with
2348 no syncing of disks and no clean shutdown of userspace. So, they are
2349 pretty close to crashing the machine.
2360 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. c
\bco
\bon
\bnf
\bfi
\big
\bg
2362 "config" adds a new device to the virtual machine. Currently the ubd
2363 and network drivers support this. It takes one argument, which is the
2364 device to add, with the same syntax as the kernel command line.
2370 config ubd3=/home/jdike/incoming/roots/root_fs_debian22
2373 (mconsole) config eth1=mcast
2381 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. r
\bre
\bem
\bmo
\bov
\bve
\be
2383 "remove" deletes a device from the system. Its argument is just the
2384 name of the device to be removed. The device must be idle in whatever
2385 sense the driver considers necessary. In the case of the ubd driver,
2386 the removed block device must not be mounted, swapped on, or otherwise
2387 open, and in the case of the network driver, the device must be down.
2390 (mconsole) remove ubd3
2392 (mconsole) remove eth1
2400 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. s
\bsy
\bys
\bsr
\brq
\bq
2402 This takes one argument, which is a single letter. It calls the
2403 generic kernel's SysRq driver, which does whatever is called for by
2404 that argument. See the SysRq documentation in Documentation/sysrq.txt
2405 in your favorite kernel tree to see what letters are valid and what
2410 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.6
\b6.
\b. h
\bhe
\bel
\blp
\bp
2412 "help" returns a string listing the valid commands and what each one
2417 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.7
\b7.
\b. c
\bca
\bad
\bd
2419 This invokes the Ctl-Alt-Del action on init. What exactly this ends
2420 up doing is up to /etc/inittab. Normally, it reboots the machine.
2421 With UML, this is usually not desired, so if a halt would be better,
2422 then find the section of inittab that looks like this
2425 # What to do when CTRL-ALT-DEL is pressed.
2426 ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now
2431 and change the command to halt.
2435 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.8
\b8.
\b. s
\bst
\bto
\bop
\bp
2437 This puts the UML in a loop reading mconsole requests until a 'go'
2438 mconsole command is received. This is very useful for making backups
2439 of UML filesystems, as the UML can be stopped, then synced via 'sysrq
2440 s', so that everything is written to the filesystem. You can then copy
2441 the filesystem and then send the UML 'go' via mconsole.
2444 Note that a UML running with more than one CPU will have problems
2445 after you send the 'stop' command, as only one CPU will be held in a
2446 mconsole loop and all others will continue as normal. This is a bug,
2451 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.9
\b9.
\b. g
\bgo
\bo
2453 This resumes a UML after being paused by a 'stop' command. Note that
2454 when the UML has resumed, TCP connections may have timed out and if
2455 the UML is paused for a long period of time, crond might go a little
2456 crazy, running all the jobs it didn't do earlier.
2465 1
\b11
\b1.
\b. K
\bKe
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl d
\bde
\beb
\bbu
\bug
\bgg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg
2468 N
\bNo
\bot
\bte
\be:
\b: The interface that makes debugging, as described here, possible
2469 is present in 2.4.0-test6 kernels and later.
2472 Since the user-mode kernel runs as a normal Linux process, it is
2473 possible to debug it with gdb almost like any other process. It is
2474 slightly different because the kernel's threads are already being
2475 ptraced for system call interception, so gdb can't ptrace them.
2476 However, a mechanism has been added to work around that problem.
2479 In order to debug the kernel, you need build it from source. See
2480 ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' for information on doing that.
2481 Make sure that you enable CONFIG_DEBUGSYM and CONFIG_PT_PROXY during
2482 the config. These will compile the kernel with -g, and enable the
2483 ptrace proxy so that gdb works with UML, respectively.
2488 1
\b11
\b1.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. S
\bSt
\bta
\bar
\brt
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhe
\be k
\bke
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl u
\bun
\bnd
\bde
\ber
\br g
\bgd
\bdb
\bb
2490 You can have the kernel running under the control of gdb from the
2491 beginning by putting 'debug' on the command line. You will get an
2492 xterm with gdb running inside it. The kernel will send some commands
2493 to gdb which will leave it stopped at the beginning of start_kernel.
2494 At this point, you can get things going with 'next', 'step', or
2498 There is a transcript of a debugging session here <debug-
2499 session.html> , with breakpoints being set in the scheduler and in an
2501 1
\b11
\b1.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. E
\bEx
\bxa
\bam
\bmi
\bin
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg s
\bsl
\ble
\bee
\bep
\bpi
\bin
\bng
\bg p
\bpr
\bro
\boc
\bce
\bes
\bss
\bse
\bes
\bs
2503 Not every bug is evident in the currently running process. Sometimes,
2504 processes hang in the kernel when they shouldn't because they've
2505 deadlocked on a semaphore or something similar. In this case, when
2506 you ^C gdb and get a backtrace, you will see the idle thread, which
2507 isn't very relevant.
2510 What you want is the stack of whatever process is sleeping when it
2511 shouldn't be. You need to figure out which process that is, which is
2512 generally fairly easy. Then you need to get its host process id,
2513 which you can do either by looking at ps on the host or at
2514 task.thread.extern_pid in gdb.
2517 Now what you do is this:
2519 +
\bo detach from the current thread
2528 +
\bo attach to the thread you are interested in
2531 (UML gdb) att <host pid>
2537 +
\bo look at its stack and anything else of interest
2545 Note that you can't do anything at this point that requires that a
2546 process execute, e.g. calling a function
2548 +
\bo when you're done looking at that process, reattach to the current
2549 thread and continue it
2566 Here, specifying any pid which is not the process id of a UML thread
2567 will cause gdb to reattach to the current thread. I commonly use 1,
2568 but any other invalid pid would work.
2572 1
\b11
\b1.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. R
\bRu
\bun
\bnn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg d
\bdd
\bdd
\bd o
\bon
\bn U
\bUM
\bML
\bL
2574 ddd works on UML, but requires a special kludge. The process goes
2586 +
\bo With ps, get the pid of the gdb that ddd started. You can ask the
2587 gdb to tell you, but for some reason that confuses things and
2590 +
\bo run UML with 'debug=parent gdb-pid=<pid>' added to the command line
2591 - it will just sit there after you hit return
2593 +
\bo type 'att 1' to the ddd gdb and you will see something like
2596 0xa013dc51 in __kill ()
2605 +
\bo At this point, type 'c', UML will boot up, and you can use ddd just
2606 as you do on any other process.
2610 1
\b11
\b1.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. D
\bDe
\beb
\bbu
\bug
\bgg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg m
\bmo
\bod
\bdu
\bul
\ble
\bes
\bs
2612 gdb has support for debugging code which is dynamically loaded into
2613 the process. This support is what is needed to debug kernel modules
2617 Using that support is somewhat complicated. You have to tell gdb what
2618 object file you just loaded into UML and where in memory it is. Then,
2619 it can read the symbol table, and figure out where all the symbols are
2620 from the load address that you provided. It gets more interesting
2621 when you load the module again (i.e. after an rmmod). You have to
2622 tell gdb to forget about all its symbols, including the main UML ones
2623 for some reason, then load then all back in again.
2626 There's an easy way and a hard way to do this. The easy way is to use
2627 the umlgdb expect script written by Chandan Kudige. It basically
2628 automates the process for you.
2631 First, you must tell it where your modules are. There is a list in
2632 the script that looks like this:
2634 "fat" "/usr/src/uml/linux-2.4.18/fs/fat/fat.o"
2635 "isofs" "/usr/src/uml/linux-2.4.18/fs/isofs/isofs.o"
2636 "minix" "/usr/src/uml/linux-2.4.18/fs/minix/minix.o"
2642 You change that to list the names and paths of the modules that you
2643 are going to debug. Then you run it from the toplevel directory of
2644 your UML pool and it basically tells you what to do:
2649 ******** GDB pid is 21903 ********
2650 Start UML as: ./linux <kernel switches> debug gdb-pid=21903
2654 GNU gdb 5.0rh-5 Red Hat Linux 7.1
2655 Copyright 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2656 GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
2657 welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
2658 Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
2659 There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
2660 This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
2661 (gdb) b sys_init_module
2662 Breakpoint 1 at 0xa0011923: file module.c, line 349.
2668 After you run UML and it sits there doing nothing, you hit return at
2669 the 'att 1' and continue it:
2672 Attaching to program: /home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/./linux, process 1
2673 0xa00f4221 in __kill ()
2680 At this point, you debug normally. When you insmod something, the
2681 expect magic will kick in and you'll see something like:
2699 *** Module hostfs loaded ***
2700 Breakpoint 1, sys_init_module (name_user=0x805abb0 "hostfs",
2701 mod_user=0x8070e00) at module.c:349
2702 349 char *name, *n_name, *name_tmp = NULL;
2704 Run till exit from #0 sys_init_module (name_user=0x805abb0 "hostfs",
2705 mod_user=0x8070e00) at module.c:349
2706 0xa00e2e23 in execute_syscall (r=0xa8140284) at syscall_kern.c:411
2707 411 else res = EXECUTE_SYSCALL(syscall, regs);
2708 Value returned is $1 = 0
2710 p/x (int)module_list + module_list->size_of_struct
2713 (UML gdb) symbol-file ./linux
2714 Load new symbol table from "./linux"? (y or n) y
2715 Reading symbols from ./linux...
2718 add-symbol-file /home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o 0xa9021054
2720 add symbol table from file "/home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o" at
2721 .text_addr = 0xa9021054
2724 Reading symbols from /home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o...
2726 (UML gdb) p *module_list
2727 $1 = {size_of_struct = 84, next = 0xa0178720, name = 0xa9022de0 "hostfs",
2728 size = 9016, uc = {usecount = {counter = 0}, pad = 0}, flags = 1,
2729 nsyms = 57, ndeps = 0, syms = 0xa9023170, deps = 0x0, refs = 0x0,
2730 init = 0xa90221f0 <init_hostfs>, cleanup = 0xa902222c <exit_hostfs>,
2731 ex_table_start = 0x0, ex_table_end = 0x0, persist_start = 0x0,
2732 persist_end = 0x0, can_unload = 0, runsize = 0, kallsyms_start = 0x0,
2734 archdata_start = 0x1b855 <Address 0x1b855 out of bounds>,
2735 archdata_end = 0xe5890000 <Address 0xe5890000 out of bounds>,
2736 kernel_data = 0xf689c35d <Address 0xf689c35d out of bounds>}
2737 >> Finished loading symbols for hostfs ...
2742 That's the easy way. It's highly recommended. The hard way is
2743 described below in case you're interested in what's going on.
2746 Boot the kernel under the debugger and load the module with insmod or
2747 modprobe. With gdb, do:
2750 (UML gdb) p module_list
2755 This is a list of modules that have been loaded into the kernel, with
2756 the most recently loaded module first. Normally, the module you want
2757 is at module_list. If it's not, walk down the next links, looking at
2758 the name fields until find the module you want to debug. Take the
2759 address of that structure, and add module.size_of_struct (which in
2760 2.4.10 kernels is 96 (0x60)) to it. Gdb can make this hard addition
2766 printf "%#x\n", (int)module_list module_list->size_of_struct
2771 The offset from the module start occasionally changes (before 2.4.0,
2772 it was module.size_of_struct + 4), so it's a good idea to check the
2773 init and cleanup addresses once in a while, as describe below. Now
2778 add-symbol-file /path/to/module/on/host that_address
2783 Tell gdb you really want to do it, and you're in business.
2786 If there's any doubt that you got the offset right, like breakpoints
2787 appear not to work, or they're appearing in the wrong place, you can
2788 check it by looking at the module structure. The init and cleanup
2789 fields should look like:
2792 init = 0x588066b0 <init_hostfs>, cleanup = 0x588066c0 <exit_hostfs>
2797 with no offsets on the symbol names. If the names are right, but they
2798 are offset, then the offset tells you how much you need to add to the
2799 address you gave to add-symbol-file.
2802 When you want to load in a new version of the module, you need to get
2803 gdb to forget about the old one. The only way I've found to do that
2804 is to tell gdb to forget about all symbols that it knows about:
2807 (UML gdb) symbol-file
2812 Then reload the symbols from the kernel binary:
2815 (UML gdb) symbol-file /path/to/kernel
2820 and repeat the process above. You'll also need to re-enable break-
2821 points. They were disabled when you dumped all the symbols because
2822 gdb couldn't figure out where they should go.
2826 1
\b11
\b1.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. A
\bAt
\btt
\bta
\bac
\bch
\bhi
\bin
\bng
\bg g
\bgd
\bdb
\bb t
\bto
\bo t
\bth
\bhe
\be k
\bke
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl
2828 If you don't have the kernel running under gdb, you can attach gdb to
2829 it later by sending the tracing thread a SIGUSR1. The first line of
2830 the console output identifies its pid:
2831 tracing thread pid = 20093
2836 When you send it the signal:
2839 host% kill -USR1 20093
2844 you will get an xterm with gdb running in it.
2847 If you have the mconsole compiled into UML, then the mconsole client
2848 can be used to start gdb:
2851 (mconsole) (mconsole) config gdb=xterm
2856 will fire up an xterm with gdb running in it.
2860 1
\b11
\b1.
\b.6
\b6.
\b. U
\bUs
\bsi
\bin
\bng
\bg a
\bal
\blt
\bte
\ber
\brn
\bna
\bat
\bte
\be d
\bde
\beb
\bbu
\bug
\bgg
\bge
\ber
\brs
\bs
2862 UML has support for attaching to an already running debugger rather
2863 than starting gdb itself. This is present in CVS as of 17 Apr 2001.
2864 I sent it to Alan for inclusion in the ac tree, and it will be in my
2868 This is useful when gdb is a subprocess of some UI, such as emacs or
2869 ddd. It can also be used to run debuggers other than gdb on UML.
2870 Below is an example of using strace as an alternate debugger.
2873 To do this, you need to get the pid of the debugger and pass it in
2877 If you are using gdb under some UI, then tell it to 'att 1', and
2878 you'll find yourself attached to UML.
2881 If you are using something other than gdb as your debugger, then
2882 you'll need to get it to do the equivalent of 'att 1' if it doesn't do
2886 An example of an alternate debugger is strace. You can strace the
2887 actual kernel as follows:
2889 +
\bo Run the following in a shell
2893 sh -c 'echo pid=$$; echo -n hit return; read x; exec strace -p 1 -o strace.out'
2897 +
\bo Run UML with 'debug' and 'gdb-pid=<pid>' with the pid printed out
2898 by the previous command
2900 +
\bo Hit return in the shell, and UML will start running, and strace
2901 output will start accumulating in the output file.
2903 Note that this is different from running
2906 host% strace ./linux
2911 That will strace only the main UML thread, the tracing thread, which
2912 doesn't do any of the actual kernel work. It just oversees the vir-
2913 tual machine. In contrast, using strace as described above will show
2914 you the low-level activity of the virtual machine.
2920 1
\b12
\b2.
\b. K
\bKe
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl d
\bde
\beb
\bbu
\bug
\bgg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg e
\bex
\bxa
\bam
\bmp
\bpl
\ble
\bes
\bs
2922 1
\b12
\b2.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be c
\bca
\bas
\bse
\be o
\bof
\bf t
\bth
\bhe
\be h
\bhu
\bun
\bng
\bg f
\bfs
\bsc
\bck
\bk
2924 When booting up the kernel, fsck failed, and dropped me into a shell
2925 to fix things up. I ran fsck -y, which hung:
2963 Setting hostname uml [ OK ]
2964 Checking root filesystem
2965 /dev/fhd0 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.
2966 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780.
2968 /dev/fhd0: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
2969 (i.e., without -a or -p options)
2972 *** An error occurred during the file system check.
2973 *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
2974 *** when you leave the shell.
2975 Give root password for maintenance
2976 (or type Control-D for normal startup):
2978 [root@uml /root]# fsck -y /dev/fhd0
2980 Parallelizing fsck version 1.14 (9-Jan-1999)
2981 e2fsck 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
2982 /dev/fhd0 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
2983 Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
2984 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780. Ignore error? yes
2986 Inode 19780, i_blocks is 1548, should be 540. Fix? yes
2988 Pass 2: Checking directory structure
2989 Error reading block 49405 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read). Ignore error? yes
2991 Directory inode 11858, block 0, offset 0: directory corrupted
2994 Missing '.' in directory inode 11858.
2997 Missing '..' in directory inode 11858.
3004 The standard drill in this sort of situation is to fire up gdb on the
3005 signal thread, which, in this case, was pid 1935. In another window,
3006 I run gdb and attach pid 1935.
3011 ~/linux/2.3.26/um 1016: gdb linux
3012 GNU gdb 4.17.0.11 with Linux support
3013 Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3014 GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
3015 welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
3016 Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
3017 There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
3018 This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
3021 Attaching to program `/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux', Pid 1935
3022 0x100756d9 in __wait4 ()
3029 Let's see what's currently running:
3033 (gdb) p current_task.pid
3040 It's the idle thread, which means that fsck went to sleep for some
3041 reason and never woke up.
3044 Let's guess that the last process in the process list is fsck:
3048 (gdb) p current_task.prev_task.comm
3049 $13 = "fsck.ext2\000\000\000\000\000\000"
3055 It is, so let's see what it thinks it's up to:
3059 (gdb) p current_task.prev_task.thread
3060 $14 = {extern_pid = 1980, tracing = 0, want_tracing = 0, forking = 0,
3061 kernel_stack_page = 0, signal_stack = 1342627840, syscall = {id = 4, args = {
3062 3, 134973440, 1024, 0, 1024}, have_result = 0, result = 50590720},
3063 request = {op = 2, u = {exec = {ip = 1350467584, sp = 2952789424}, fork = {
3064 regs = {1350467584, 2952789424, 0 <repeats 15 times>}, sigstack = 0,
3065 pid = 0}, switch_to = 0x507e8000, thread = {proc = 0x507e8000,
3066 arg = 0xaffffdb0, flags = 0, new_pid = 0}, input_request = {
3067 op = 1350467584, fd = -1342177872, proc = 0, pid = 0}}}}
3073 The interesting things here are the fact that its .thread.syscall.id
3074 is __NR_write (see the big switch in arch/um/kernel/syscall_kern.c or
3075 the defines in include/asm-um/arch/unistd.h), and that it never
3076 returned. Also, its .request.op is OP_SWITCH (see
3077 arch/um/include/user_util.h). These mean that it went into a write,
3078 and, for some reason, called schedule().
3081 The fact that it never returned from write means that its stack should
3082 be fairly interesting. Its pid is 1980 (.thread.extern_pid). That
3083 process is being ptraced by the signal thread, so it must be detached
3084 before gdb can attach it:
3095 (gdb) call detach(1980)
3097 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
3098 <function called from gdb>
3099 The program being debugged stopped while in a function called from GDB.
3100 When the function (detach) is done executing, GDB will silently
3101 stop (instead of continuing to evaluate the expression containing
3103 (gdb) call detach(1980)
3110 The first detach segfaults for some reason, and the second one
3114 Now I detach from the signal thread, attach to the fsck thread, and
3119 Detaching from program: /home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux Pid 1935
3121 Attaching to program `/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux', Pid 1980
3122 0x10070451 in __kill ()
3124 #0 0x10070451 in __kill ()
3125 #1 0x10068ccd in usr1_pid (pid=1980) at process.c:30
3126 #2 0x1006a03f in _switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000)
3127 at process_kern.c:156
3128 #3 0x1006a052 in switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000, last=0x50072000)
3129 at process_kern.c:161
3130 #4 0x10001d12 in schedule () at sched.c:777
3131 #5 0x1006a744 in __down (sem=0x507d241c) at semaphore.c:71
3132 #6 0x1006aa10 in __down_failed () at semaphore.c:157
3133 #7 0x1006c5d8 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006e940) at trap_user.c:174
3134 #8 0x1006c5ec in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3135 #9 <signal handler called>
3136 #10 0x10155404 in errno ()
3137 #11 0x1006c0aa in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:50
3138 #12 0x1006c5d8 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006eaf8) at trap_user.c:174
3139 #13 0x1006c5ec in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3140 #14 <signal handler called>
3142 #16 0x10016647 in sys_write (fd=3,
3143 buf=0x80b8800 <Address 0x80b8800 out of bounds>, count=1024)
3145 #17 0x1006d5b3 in execute_syscall (syscall=4, args=0x5006ef08)
3146 at syscall_kern.c:254
3147 #18 0x1006af87 in really_do_syscall (sig=12) at syscall_user.c:35
3148 #19 <signal handler called>
3149 #20 0x400dc8b0 in ?? ()
3155 The interesting things here are :
3157 +
\bo There are two segfaults on this stack (frames 9 and 14)
3159 +
\bo The first faulting address (frame 11) is 0x50000800
3161 (gdb) p (void *)1342179328
3162 $16 = (void *) 0x50000800
3168 The initial faulting address is interesting because it is on the idle
3169 thread's stack. I had been seeing the idle thread segfault for no
3170 apparent reason, and the cause looked like stack corruption. In hopes
3171 of catching the culprit in the act, I had turned off all protections
3172 to that stack while the idle thread wasn't running. This apparently
3176 However, the more immediate problem is that second segfault and I'm
3177 going to concentrate on that. First, I want to see where the fault
3178 happened, so I have to go look at the sigcontent struct in frame 8:
3183 #1 0x10068ccd in usr1_pid (pid=1980) at process.c:30
3184 30 kill(pid, SIGUSR1);
3186 #2 0x1006a03f in _switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000)
3187 at process_kern.c:156
3188 156 usr1_pid(getpid());
3190 #3 0x1006a052 in switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000, last=0x50072000)
3191 at process_kern.c:161
3192 161 _switch_to(prev, next);
3194 #4 0x10001d12 in schedule () at sched.c:777
3195 777 switch_to(prev, next, prev);
3197 #5 0x1006a744 in __down (sem=0x507d241c) at semaphore.c:71
3200 #6 0x1006aa10 in __down_failed () at semaphore.c:157
3203 #7 0x1006c5d8 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006e940) at trap_user.c:174
3204 174 segv(sc->cr2, sc->err & 2);
3206 #8 0x1006c5ec in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3207 182 segv_handler(sc);
3209 Cannot access memory at address 0x0.
3214 That's not very useful, so I'll try a more manual method:
3217 (gdb) p *((struct sigcontext *) (&sig + 1))
3218 $19 = {gs = 0, __gsh = 0, fs = 0, __fsh = 0, es = 43, __esh = 0, ds = 43,
3219 __dsh = 0, edi = 1342179328, esi = 1350378548, ebp = 1342630440,
3220 esp = 1342630420, ebx = 1348150624, edx = 1280, ecx = 0, eax = 0,
3221 trapno = 14, err = 4, eip = 268480945, cs = 35, __csh = 0, eflags = 66118,
3222 esp_at_signal = 1342630420, ss = 43, __ssh = 0, fpstate = 0x0, oldmask = 0,
3227 The ip is in handle_mm_fault:
3230 (gdb) p (void *)268480945
3231 $20 = (void *) 0x1000b1b1
3233 handle_mm_fault + 57 in section .text
3239 Specifically, it's in pte_alloc:
3243 Line 124 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3244 starts at address 0x1000b1b1 <handle_mm_fault+57>
3245 and ends at 0x1000b1b7 <handle_mm_fault+63>.
3251 To find where in handle_mm_fault this is, I'll jump forward in the
3252 code until I see an address in that procedure:
3256 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1c0
3257 Line 126 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3258 starts at address 0x1000b1b7 <handle_mm_fault+63>
3259 and ends at 0x1000b1c3 <handle_mm_fault+75>.
3260 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1d0
3261 Line 131 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3262 starts at address 0x1000b1d0 <handle_mm_fault+88>
3263 and ends at 0x1000b1da <handle_mm_fault+98>.
3264 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1e0
3265 Line 61 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3266 starts at address 0x1000b1da <handle_mm_fault+98>
3267 and ends at 0x1000b1e1 <handle_mm_fault+105>.
3268 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1f0
3269 Line 134 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3270 starts at address 0x1000b1f0 <handle_mm_fault+120>
3271 and ends at 0x1000b200 <handle_mm_fault+136>.
3272 (gdb) i line *0x1000b200
3273 Line 135 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3274 starts at address 0x1000b200 <handle_mm_fault+136>
3275 and ends at 0x1000b208 <handle_mm_fault+144>.
3276 (gdb) i line *0x1000b210
3277 Line 139 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3278 starts at address 0x1000b210 <handle_mm_fault+152>
3279 and ends at 0x1000b219 <handle_mm_fault+161>.
3280 (gdb) i line *0x1000b220
3281 Line 1168 of "memory.c" starts at address 0x1000b21e <handle_mm_fault+166>
3282 and ends at 0x1000b222 <handle_mm_fault+170>.
3288 Something is apparently wrong with the page tables or vma_structs, so
3289 lets go back to frame 11 and have a look at them:
3293 #11 0x1006c0aa in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:50
3294 50 handle_mm_fault(current, vma, address, is_write);
3295 (gdb) call pgd_offset_proc(vma->vm_mm, address)
3296 $22 = (pgd_t *) 0x80a548c
3302 That's pretty bogus. Page tables aren't supposed to be in process
3303 text or data areas. Let's see what's in the vma:
3307 $23 = {vm_mm = 0x507d2434, vm_start = 0, vm_end = 134512640,
3308 vm_next = 0x80a4f8c, vm_page_prot = {pgprot = 0}, vm_flags = 31200,
3309 vm_avl_height = 2058, vm_avl_left = 0x80a8c94, vm_avl_right = 0x80d1000,
3310 vm_next_share = 0xaffffdb0, vm_pprev_share = 0xaffffe63,
3311 vm_ops = 0xaffffe7a, vm_pgoff = 2952789626, vm_file = 0xafffffec,
3312 vm_private_data = 0x62}
3314 $24 = {mmap = 0x507d2434, mmap_avl = 0x0, mmap_cache = 0x8048000,
3315 pgd = 0x80a4f8c, mm_users = {counter = 0}, mm_count = {counter = 134904288},
3316 map_count = 134909076, mmap_sem = {count = {counter = 135073792},
3317 sleepers = -1342177872, wait = {lock = <optimized out or zero length>,
3318 task_list = {next = 0xaffffe63, prev = 0xaffffe7a},
3319 __magic = -1342177670, __creator = -1342177300}, __magic = 98},
3320 page_table_lock = {}, context = 138, start_code = 0, end_code = 0,
3321 start_data = 0, end_data = 0, start_brk = 0, brk = 0, start_stack = 0,
3322 arg_start = 0, arg_end = 0, env_start = 0, env_end = 0, rss = 1350381536,
3323 total_vm = 0, locked_vm = 0, def_flags = 0, cpu_vm_mask = 0, swap_cnt = 0,
3324 swap_address = 0, segments = 0x0}
3330 This also pretty bogus. With all of the 0x80xxxxx and 0xaffffxxx
3331 addresses, this is looking like a stack was plonked down on top of
3332 these structures. Maybe it's a stack overflow from the next page:
3337 $25 = (struct vm_area_struct *) 0x507d2434
3343 That's towards the lower quarter of the page, so that would have to
3344 have been pretty heavy stack overflow:
3360 0x507d2434: 0x507d2434 0x00000000 0x08048000 0x080a4f8c
3361 0x507d2444: 0x00000000 0x080a79e0 0x080a8c94 0x080d1000
3362 0x507d2454: 0xaffffdb0 0xaffffe63 0xaffffe7a 0xaffffe7a
3363 0x507d2464: 0xafffffec 0x00000062 0x0000008a 0x00000000
3364 0x507d2474: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3365 0x507d2484: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3366 0x507d2494: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x507d2fe0 0x00000000
3367 0x507d24a4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3368 0x507d24b4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3369 0x507d24c4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3370 0x507d24d4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3371 0x507d24e4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3372 0x507d24f4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3373 0x507d2504: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3374 0x507d2514: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3375 0x507d2524: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3376 0x507d2534: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x507d25dc 0x00000000
3377 0x507d2544: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3378 0x507d2554: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3379 0x507d2564: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3380 0x507d2574: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3381 0x507d2584: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3382 0x507d2594: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3383 0x507d25a4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3384 0x507d25b4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3390 It's not stack overflow. The only "stack-like" piece of this data is
3391 the vma_struct itself.
3394 At this point, I don't see any avenues to pursue, so I just have to
3395 admit that I have no idea what's going on. What I will do, though, is
3396 stick a trap on the segfault handler which will stop if it sees any
3397 writes to the idle thread's stack. That was the thing that happened
3398 first, and it may be that if I can catch it immediately, what's going
3399 on will be somewhat clearer.
3402 1
\b12
\b2.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. E
\bEp
\bpi
\bis
\bso
\bod
\bde
\be 2
\b2:
\b: T
\bTh
\bhe
\be c
\bca
\bas
\bse
\be o
\bof
\bf t
\bth
\bhe
\be h
\bhu
\bun
\bng
\bg f
\bfs
\bsc
\bck
\bk
3404 After setting a trap in the SEGV handler for accesses to the signal
3405 thread's stack, I reran the kernel.
3408 fsck hung again, this time by hitting the trap:
3425 Setting hostname uml [ OK ]
3426 Checking root filesystem
3427 /dev/fhd0 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
3428 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780.
3430 /dev/fhd0: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
3431 (i.e., without -a or -p options)
3434 *** An error occurred during the file system check.
3435 *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
3436 *** when you leave the shell.
3437 Give root password for maintenance
3438 (or type Control-D for normal startup):
3440 [root@uml /root]# fsck -y /dev/fhd0
3442 Parallelizing fsck version 1.14 (9-Jan-1999)
3443 e2fsck 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
3444 /dev/fhd0 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
3445 Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
3446 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780. Ignore error? yes
3448 Pass 2: Checking directory structure
3449 Error reading block 49405 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read). Ignore error? yes
3451 Directory inode 11858, block 0, offset 0: directory corrupted
3454 Missing '.' in directory inode 11858.
3457 Missing '..' in directory inode 11858.
3460 Untested (4127) [100fe44c]: trap_kern.c line 31
3466 I need to get the signal thread to detach from pid 4127 so that I can
3467 attach to it with gdb. This is done by sending it a SIGUSR1, which is
3468 caught by the signal thread, which detaches the process:
3477 Now I can run gdb on it:
3491 ~/linux/2.3.26/um 1034: gdb linux
3492 GNU gdb 4.17.0.11 with Linux support
3493 Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3494 GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
3495 welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
3496 Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
3497 There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
3498 This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
3500 Attaching to program `/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux', Pid 4127
3501 0x10075891 in __libc_nanosleep ()
3507 The backtrace shows that it was in a write and that the fault address
3508 (address in frame 3) is 0x50000800, which is right in the middle of
3509 the signal thread's stack page:
3513 #0 0x10075891 in __libc_nanosleep ()
3514 #1 0x1007584d in __sleep (seconds=1000000)
3515 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:78
3516 #2 0x1006ce9a in stop () at user_util.c:191
3517 #3 0x1006bf88 in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:31
3518 #4 0x1006c628 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006eaf8) at trap_user.c:174
3519 #5 0x1006c63c in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3520 #6 <signal handler called>
3522 #8 0x10016647 in sys_write (fd=3, buf=0x80b8800 "R.", count=1024)
3524 #9 0x1006d603 in execute_syscall (syscall=4, args=0x5006ef08)
3525 at syscall_kern.c:254
3526 #10 0x1006af87 in really_do_syscall (sig=12) at syscall_user.c:35
3527 #11 <signal handler called>
3528 #12 0x400dc8b0 in ?? ()
3529 #13 <signal handler called>
3530 #14 0x400dc8b0 in ?? ()
3531 #15 0x80545fd in ?? ()
3532 #16 0x804daae in ?? ()
3533 #17 0x8054334 in ?? ()
3534 #18 0x804d23e in ?? ()
3535 #19 0x8049632 in ?? ()
3536 #20 0x80491d2 in ?? ()
3537 #21 0x80596b5 in ?? ()
3538 (gdb) p (void *)1342179328
3539 $3 = (void *) 0x50000800
3545 Going up the stack to the segv_handler frame and looking at where in
3546 the code the access happened shows that it happened near line 110 of
3558 #1 0x1007584d in __sleep (seconds=1000000)
3559 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:78
3560 ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:78: No such file or directory.
3562 #2 0x1006ce9a in stop () at user_util.c:191
3563 191 while(1) sleep(1000000);
3565 #3 0x1006bf88 in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:31
3568 #4 0x1006c628 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006eaf8) at trap_user.c:174
3569 174 segv(sc->cr2, sc->err & 2);
3571 $1 = {gs = 0, __gsh = 0, fs = 0, __fsh = 0, es = 43, __esh = 0, ds = 43,
3572 __dsh = 0, edi = 1342179328, esi = 134973440, ebp = 1342631484,
3573 esp = 1342630864, ebx = 256, edx = 0, ecx = 256, eax = 1024, trapno = 14,
3574 err = 6, eip = 268550834, cs = 35, __csh = 0, eflags = 66070,
3575 esp_at_signal = 1342630864, ss = 43, __ssh = 0, fpstate = 0x0, oldmask = 0,
3577 (gdb) p (void *)268550834
3578 $2 = (void *) 0x1001c2b2
3580 block_write + 1090 in section .text
3582 Line 209 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/arch/string.h"
3583 starts at address 0x1001c2a1 <block_write+1073>
3584 and ends at 0x1001c2bf <block_write+1103>.
3585 (gdb) i line *0x1001c2c0
3586 Line 110 of "block_dev.c" starts at address 0x1001c2bf <block_write+1103>
3587 and ends at 0x1001c2e3 <block_write+1139>.
3593 Looking at the source shows that the fault happened during a call to
3594 copy_to_user to copy the data into the kernel:
3598 108 copy_from_user(p,buf,chars);
3606 p is the pointer which must contain 0x50000800, since buf contains
3607 0x80b8800 (frame 8 above). It is defined as:
3610 p = offset + bh->b_data;
3616 I need to figure out what bh is, and it just so happens that bh is
3617 passed as an argument to mark_buffer_uptodate and mark_buffer_dirty a
3618 few lines later, so I do a little disassembly:
3623 (gdb) disas 0x1001c2bf 0x1001c2e0
3624 Dump of assembler code from 0x1001c2bf to 0x1001c2d0:
3625 0x1001c2bf <block_write+1103>: addl %eax,0xc(%ebp)
3626 0x1001c2c2 <block_write+1106>: movl 0xfffffdd4(%ebp),%edx
3627 0x1001c2c8 <block_write+1112>: btsl $0x0,0x18(%edx)
3628 0x1001c2cd <block_write+1117>: btsl $0x1,0x18(%edx)
3629 0x1001c2d2 <block_write+1122>: sbbl %ecx,%ecx
3630 0x1001c2d4 <block_write+1124>: testl %ecx,%ecx
3631 0x1001c2d6 <block_write+1126>: jne 0x1001c2e3 <block_write+1139>
3632 0x1001c2d8 <block_write+1128>: pushl $0x0
3633 0x1001c2da <block_write+1130>: pushl %edx
3634 0x1001c2db <block_write+1131>: call 0x1001819c <__mark_buffer_dirty>
3635 End of assembler dump.
3641 At that point, bh is in %edx (address 0x1001c2da), which is calculated
3642 at 0x1001c2c2 as %ebp + 0xfffffdd4, so I figure exactly what that is,
3643 taking %ebp from the sigcontext_struct above:
3646 (gdb) p (void *)1342631484
3647 $5 = (void *) 0x5006ee3c
3648 (gdb) p 0x5006ee3c+0xfffffdd4
3651 $7 = (void *) 0x5006ec10
3652 (gdb) p *((void **)$7)
3653 $8 = (void *) 0x50100200
3659 Now, I look at the structure to see what's in it, and particularly,
3660 what its b_data field contains:
3663 (gdb) p *((struct buffer_head *)0x50100200)
3664 $13 = {b_next = 0x50289380, b_blocknr = 49405, b_size = 1024, b_list = 0,
3665 b_dev = 15872, b_count = {counter = 1}, b_rdev = 15872, b_state = 24,
3666 b_flushtime = 0, b_next_free = 0x501001a0, b_prev_free = 0x50100260,
3667 b_this_page = 0x501001a0, b_reqnext = 0x0, b_pprev = 0x507fcf58,
3668 b_data = 0x50000800 "", b_page = 0x50004000,
3669 b_end_io = 0x10017f60 <end_buffer_io_sync>, b_dev_id = 0x0,
3670 b_rsector = 98810, b_wait = {lock = <optimized out or zero length>,
3671 task_list = {next = 0x50100248, prev = 0x50100248}, __magic = 1343226448,
3672 __creator = 0}, b_kiobuf = 0x0}
3678 The b_data field is indeed 0x50000800, so the question becomes how
3679 that happened. The rest of the structure looks fine, so this probably
3680 is not a case of data corruption. It happened on purpose somehow.
3683 The b_page field is a pointer to the page_struct representing the
3684 0x50000000 page. Looking at it shows the kernel's idea of the state
3690 $17 = {list = {next = 0x50004a5c, prev = 0x100c5174}, mapping = 0x0,
3691 index = 0, next_hash = 0x0, count = {counter = 1}, flags = 132, lru = {
3692 next = 0x50008460, prev = 0x50019350}, wait = {
3693 lock = <optimized out or zero length>, task_list = {next = 0x50004024,
3694 prev = 0x50004024}, __magic = 1342193708, __creator = 0},
3695 pprev_hash = 0x0, buffers = 0x501002c0, virtual = 1342177280,
3702 Some sanity-checking: the virtual field shows the "virtual" address of
3703 this page, which in this kernel is the same as its "physical" address,
3704 and the page_struct itself should be mem_map[0], since it represents
3705 the first page of memory:
3709 (gdb) p (void *)1342177280
3710 $18 = (void *) 0x50000000
3712 $19 = (mem_map_t *) 0x50004000
3718 These check out fine.
3721 Now to check out the page_struct itself. In particular, the flags
3722 field shows whether the page is considered free or not:
3732 The "reserved" bit is the high bit, which is definitely not set, so
3733 the kernel considers the signal stack page to be free and available to
3737 At this point, I jump to conclusions and start looking at my early
3738 boot code, because that's where that page is supposed to be reserved.
3741 In my setup_arch procedure, I have the following code which looks just
3746 bootmap_size = init_bootmem(start_pfn, end_pfn - start_pfn);
3747 free_bootmem(__pa(low_physmem) + bootmap_size, high_physmem - low_physmem);
3753 Two stack pages have already been allocated, and low_physmem points to
3754 the third page, which is the beginning of free memory.
3755 The init_bootmem call declares the entire memory to the boot memory
3756 manager, which marks it all reserved. The free_bootmem call frees up
3757 all of it, except for the first two pages. This looks correct to me.
3760 So, I decide to see init_bootmem run and make sure that it is marking
3761 those first two pages as reserved. I never get that far.
3764 Stepping into init_bootmem, and looking at bootmem_map before looking
3765 at what it contains shows the following:
3770 $3 = (void *) 0x50000000
3776 Aha! The light dawns. That first page is doing double duty as a
3777 stack and as the boot memory map. The last thing that the boot memory
3778 manager does is to free the pages used by its memory map, so this page
3779 is getting freed even its marked as reserved.
3782 The fix was to initialize the boot memory manager before allocating
3783 those two stack pages, and then allocate them through the boot memory
3784 manager. After doing this, and fixing a couple of subsequent buglets,
3785 the stack corruption problem disappeared.
3791 1
\b13
\b3.
\b. W
\bWh
\bha
\bat
\bt t
\bto
\bo d
\bdo
\bo w
\bwh
\bhe
\ben
\bn U
\bUM
\bML
\bL d
\bdo
\boe
\bes
\bsn
\bn'
\b't
\bt w
\bwo
\bor
\brk
\bk
3796 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. S
\bSt
\btr
\bra
\ban
\bng
\bge
\be c
\bco
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\bla
\bat
\bti
\bio
\bon
\bn e
\ber
\brr
\bro
\bor
\brs
\bs w
\bwh
\bhe
\ben
\bn y
\byo
\bou
\bu b
\bbu
\bui
\bil
\bld
\bd f
\bfr
\bro
\bom
\bm s
\bso
\bou
\bur
\brc
\bce
\be
3798 As of test11, it is necessary to have "ARCH=um" in the environment or
3799 on the make command line for all steps in building UML, including
3800 clean, distclean, or mrproper, config, menuconfig, or xconfig, dep,
3801 and linux. If you forget for any of them, the i386 build seems to
3802 contaminate the UML build. If this happens, start from scratch with
3806 make mrproper ARCH=um
3811 and repeat the build process with ARCH=um on all the steps.
3814 See ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' for more details.
3817 Another cause of strange compilation errors is building UML in
3818 /usr/src/linux. If you do this, the first thing you need to do is
3819 clean up the mess you made. The /usr/src/linux/asm link will now
3820 point to /usr/src/linux/asm-um. Make it point back to
3821 /usr/src/linux/asm-i386. Then, move your UML pool someplace else and
3822 build it there. Also see below, where a more specific set of symptoms
3827 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. A
\bA v
\bva
\bar
\bri
\bie
\bet
\bty
\by o
\bof
\bf p
\bpa
\ban
\bni
\bic
\bcs
\bs a
\ban
\bnd
\bd h
\bha
\ban
\bng
\bgs
\bs w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh /
\b/t
\btm
\bmp
\bp o
\bon
\bn a
\ba r
\bre
\bei
\bis
\bse
\ber
\brf
\bfs
\bs f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bs-
\b-
3830 I saw this on reiserfs 3.5.21 and it seems to be fixed in 3.5.27.
3838 are diagnostic of this problem. This is a reiserfs bug which causes a
3839 thread to occasionally read stale data from a mmapped page shared with
3840 another thread. The fix is to upgrade the filesystem or to have /tmp
3841 be an ext2 filesystem.
3845 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be c
\bco
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\ble
\be f
\bfa
\bai
\bil
\bls
\bs w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh e
\ber
\brr
\bro
\bor
\brs
\bs a
\bab
\bbo
\bou
\but
\bt c
\bco
\bon
\bnf
\bfl
\bli
\bic
\bct
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bty
\byp
\bpe
\bes
\bs f
\bfo
\bor
\br
3846 '
\b'o
\bop
\bpe
\ben
\bn'
\b',
\b, '
\b'd
\bdu
\bup
\bp'
\b',
\b, a
\ban
\bnd
\bd '
\b'w
\bwa
\bai
\bit
\btp
\bpi
\bid
\bd'
\b'
3848 This happens when you build in /usr/src/linux. The UML build makes
3849 the include/asm link point to include/asm-um. /usr/include/asm points
3850 to /usr/src/linux/include/asm, so when that link gets moved, files
3851 which need to include the asm-i386 versions of headers get the
3852 incompatible asm-um versions. The fix is to move the include/asm link
3853 back to include/asm-i386 and to do UML builds someplace else.
3857 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. U
\bUM
\bML
\bL d
\bdo
\boe
\bes
\bsn
\bn'
\b't
\bt w
\bwo
\bor
\brk
\bk w
\bwh
\bhe
\ben
\bn /
\b/t
\btm
\bmp
\bp i
\bis
\bs a
\ban
\bn N
\bNF
\bFS
\bS f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bm
3859 This seems to be a similar situation with the ReiserFS problem above.
3860 Some versions of NFS seems not to handle mmap correctly, which UML
3861 depends on. The workaround is have /tmp be a non-NFS directory.
3864 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.6
\b6.
\b. U
\bUM
\bML
\bL h
\bha
\ban
\bng
\bgs
\bs o
\bon
\bn b
\bbo
\boo
\bot
\bt w
\bwh
\bhe
\ben
\bn c
\bco
\bom
\bmp
\bpi
\bil
\ble
\bed
\bd w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh g
\bgp
\bpr
\bro
\bof
\bf s
\bsu
\bup
\bpp
\bpo
\bor
\brt
\bt
3866 If you build UML with gprof support and, early in the boot, it does
3870 kernel BUG at page_alloc.c:100!
3875 you have a buggy gcc. You can work around the problem by removing
3876 UM_FASTCALL from CFLAGS in arch/um/Makefile-i386. This will open up
3877 another bug, but that one is fairly hard to reproduce.
3881 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.7
\b7.
\b. s
\bsy
\bys
\bsl
\blo
\bog
\bgd
\bd d
\bdi
\bie
\bes
\bs w
\bwi
\bit
\bth
\bh a
\ba S
\bSI
\bIG
\bGT
\bTE
\bER
\bRM
\bM o
\bon
\bn s
\bst
\bta
\bar
\brt
\btu
\bup
\bp
3883 The exact boot error depends on the distribution that you're booting,
3884 but Debian produces this:
3887 /etc/rc2.d/S10sysklogd: line 49: 93 Terminated
3888 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /sbin/syslogd -- $SYSLOGD
3893 This is a syslogd bug. There's a race between a parent process
3894 installing a signal handler and its child sending the signal. See
3895 this uml-devel post <http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/Source-
3896 Forge/709/0/6612801> for the details.
3900 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.8
\b8.
\b. T
\bTU
\bUN
\bN/
\b/T
\bTA
\bAP
\bP n
\bne
\bet
\btw
\bwo
\bor
\brk
\bki
\bin
\bng
\bg d
\bdo
\boe
\bes
\bsn
\bn'
\b't
\bt w
\bwo
\bor
\brk
\bk o
\bon
\bn a
\ba 2
\b2.
\b.4
\b4 h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\bt
3902 There are a couple of problems which were
3903 <http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/SourceForge/597/0/> name="pointed
3904 out"> by Tim Robinson <timro at trkr dot net>
3906 +
\bo It doesn't work on hosts running 2.4.7 (or thereabouts) or earlier.
3907 The fix is to upgrade to something more recent and then read the
3913 File descriptor in bad state
3917 when you bring up the device inside UML, you have a header mismatch
3918 between the original kernel and the upgraded one. Make /usr/src/linux
3919 point at the new headers. This will only be a problem if you build
3924 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.9
\b9.
\b. Y
\bYo
\bou
\bu c
\bca
\ban
\bn n
\bne
\bet
\btw
\bwo
\bor
\brk
\bk t
\bto
\bo t
\bth
\bhe
\be h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\bt b
\bbu
\but
\bt n
\bno
\bot
\bt t
\bto
\bo o
\bot
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\br m
\bma
\bac
\bch
\bhi
\bin
\bne
\bes
\bs o
\bon
\bn t
\bth
\bhe
\be
3927 If you can connect to the host, and the host can connect to UML, but
3928 you cannot connect to any other machines, then you may need to enable
3929 IP Masquerading on the host. Usually this is only experienced when
3930 using private IP addresses (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) for host/UML
3931 networking, rather than the public address space that your host is
3932 connected to. UML does not enable IP Masquerading, so you will need
3933 to create a static rule to enable it:
3937 iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
3942 Replace eth0 with the interface that you use to talk to the rest of
3946 Documentation on IP Masquerading, and SNAT, can be found at
3947 www.netfilter.org <http://www.netfilter.org> .
3950 If you can reach the local net, but not the outside Internet, then
3951 that is usually a routing problem. The UML needs a default route:
3955 route add default gw gateway IP
3960 The gateway IP can be any machine on the local net that knows how to
3961 reach the outside world. Usually, this is the host or the local net-
3965 Occasionally, we hear from someone who can reach some machines, but
3966 not others on the same net, or who can reach some ports on other
3967 machines, but not others. These are usually caused by strange
3968 firewalling somewhere between the UML and the other box. You track
3969 this down by running tcpdump on every interface the packets travel
3970 over and see where they disappear. When you find a machine that takes
3971 the packets in, but does not send them onward, that's the culprit.
3975 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b10
\b0.
\b. I
\bI h
\bha
\bav
\bve
\be n
\bno
\bo r
\bro
\boo
\bot
\bt a
\ban
\bnd
\bd I
\bI w
\bwa
\ban
\bnt
\bt t
\bto
\bo s
\bsc
\bcr
\bre
\bea
\bam
\bm
3977 Thanks to Birgit Wahlich for telling me about this strange one. It
3978 turns out that there's a limit of six environment variables on the
3979 kernel command line. When that limit is reached or exceeded, argument
3980 processing stops, which means that the 'root=' argument that UML
3981 usually adds is not seen. So, the filesystem has no idea what the
3982 root device is, so it panics.
3985 The fix is to put less stuff on the command line. Glomming all your
3986 setup variables into one is probably the best way to go.
3990 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b11
\b1.
\b. U
\bUM
\bML
\bL b
\bbu
\bui
\bil
\bld
\bd c
\bco
\bon
\bnf
\bfl
\bli
\bic
\bct
\bt b
\bbe
\bet
\btw
\bwe
\bee
\ben
\bn p
\bpt
\btr
\bra
\bac
\bce
\be.
\b.h
\bh a
\ban
\bnd
\bd u
\buc
\bco
\bon
\bnt
\bte
\bex
\bxt
\bt.
\b.h
\bh
3992 On some older systems, /usr/include/asm/ptrace.h and
3993 /usr/include/sys/ucontext.h define the same names. So, when they're
3994 included together, the defines from one completely mess up the parsing
3995 of the other, producing errors like:
3996 /usr/include/sys/ucontext.h:47: parse error before
4002 plus a pile of warnings.
4005 This is a libc botch, which has since been fixed, and I don't see any
4006 way around it besides upgrading.
4010 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b12
\b2.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be U
\bUM
\bML
\bL B
\bBo
\bog
\bgo
\boM
\bMi
\bip
\bps
\bs i
\bis
\bs e
\bex
\bxa
\bac
\bct
\btl
\bly
\by h
\bha
\bal
\blf
\bf t
\bth
\bhe
\be h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\bt'
\b's
\bs B
\bBo
\bog
\bgo
\boM
\bMi
\bip
\bps
\bs
4012 On i386 kernels, there are two ways of running the loop that is used
4013 to calculate the BogoMips rating, using the TSC if it's there or using
4014 a one-instruction loop. The TSC produces twice the BogoMips as the
4015 loop. UML uses the loop, since it has nothing resembling a TSC, and
4016 will get almost exactly the same BogoMips as a host using the loop.
4017 However, on a host with a TSC, its BogoMips will be double the loop
4018 BogoMips, and therefore double the UML BogoMips.
4022 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b13
\b3.
\b. W
\bWh
\bhe
\ben
\bn y
\byo
\bou
\bu r
\bru
\bun
\bn U
\bUM
\bML
\bL,
\b, i
\bit
\bt i
\bim
\bmm
\bme
\bed
\bdi
\bia
\bat
\bte
\bel
\bly
\by s
\bse
\beg
\bgf
\bfa
\bau
\bul
\blt
\bts
\bs
4024 If the host is configured with the 2G/2G address space split, that's
4025 why. See ``UML on 2G/2G hosts'' for the details on getting UML to
4030 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b14
\b4.
\b. x
\bxt
\bte
\ber
\brm
\bms
\bs a
\bap
\bpp
\bpe
\bea
\bar
\br,
\b, t
\bth
\bhe
\ben
\bn i
\bim
\bmm
\bme
\bed
\bdi
\bia
\bat
\bte
\bel
\bly
\by d
\bdi
\bis
\bsa
\bap
\bpp
\bpe
\bea
\bar
\br
4032 If you're running an up to date kernel with an old release of
4033 uml_utilities, the port-helper program will not work properly, so
4034 xterms will exit straight after they appear. The solution is to
4035 upgrade to the latest release of uml_utilities. Usually this problem
4036 occurs when you have installed a packaged release of UML then compiled
4037 your own development kernel without upgrading the uml_utilities from
4038 the source distribution.
4042 1
\b13
\b3.
\b.1
\b15
\b5.
\b. A
\bAn
\bny
\by o
\bot
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\br p
\bpa
\ban
\bni
\bic
\bc,
\b, h
\bha
\ban
\bng
\bg,
\b, o
\bor
\br s
\bst
\btr
\bra
\ban
\bng
\bge
\be b
\bbe
\beh
\bha
\bav
\bvi
\bio
\bor
\br
4044 If you're seeing truly strange behavior, such as hangs or panics that
4045 happen in random places, or you try running the debugger to see what's
4046 happening and it acts strangely, then it could be a problem in the
4047 host kernel. If you're not running a stock Linus or -ac kernel, then
4048 try that. An early version of the preemption patch and a 2.4.10 SuSE
4049 kernel have caused very strange problems in UML.
4052 Otherwise, let me know about it. Send a message to one of the UML
4053 mailing lists - either the developer list - user-mode-linux-devel at
4054 lists dot sourceforge dot net (subscription info) or the user list -
4055 user-mode-linux-user at lists dot sourceforge do net (subscription
4056 info), whichever you prefer. Don't assume that everyone knows about
4057 it and that a fix is imminent.
4060 If you want to be super-helpful, read ``Diagnosing Problems'' and
4061 follow the instructions contained therein.
4062 1
\b14
\b4.
\b. D
\bDi
\bia
\bag
\bgn
\bno
\bos
\bsi
\bin
\bng
\bg P
\bPr
\bro
\bob
\bbl
\ble
\bem
\bms
\bs
4065 If you get UML to crash, hang, or otherwise misbehave, you should
4066 report this on one of the project mailing lists, either the developer
4067 list - user-mode-linux-devel at lists dot sourceforge dot net
4068 (subscription info) or the user list - user-mode-linux-user at lists
4069 dot sourceforge dot net (subscription info). When you do, it is
4070 likely that I will want more information. So, it would be helpful to
4071 read the stuff below, do whatever is applicable in your case, and
4072 report the results to the list.
4075 For any diagnosis, you're going to need to build a debugging kernel.
4076 The binaries from this site aren't debuggable. If you haven't done
4077 this before, read about ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' and
4078 ``Kernel debugging'' UML first.
4081 1
\b14
\b4.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be 1
\b1 :
\b: N
\bNo
\bor
\brm
\bma
\bal
\bl k
\bke
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl p
\bpa
\ban
\bni
\bic
\bcs
\bs
4083 The most common case is for a normal thread to panic. To debug this,
4084 you will need to run it under the debugger (add 'debug' to the command
4085 line). An xterm will start up with gdb running inside it. Continue
4086 it when it stops in start_kernel and make it crash. Now ^C gdb and
4089 If the panic was a "Kernel mode fault", then there will be a segv
4090 frame on the stack and I'm going to want some more information. The
4091 stack might look something like this:
4095 #0 0x1009bf76 in __sigprocmask (how=1, set=0x5f347940, oset=0x0)
4096 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sigprocmask.c:49
4097 #1 0x10091411 in change_sig (signal=10, on=1) at process.c:218
4098 #2 0x10094785 in timer_handler (sig=26) at time_kern.c:32
4099 #3 0x1009bf38 in __restore ()
4100 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:125
4101 #4 0x1009534c in segv (address=8, ip=268849158, is_write=2, is_user=0)
4103 #5 0x10095c04 in segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:285
4104 #6 0x1009bf38 in __restore ()
4109 I'm going to want to see the symbol and line information for the value
4110 of ip in the segv frame. In this case, you would do the following:
4113 (UML gdb) i sym 268849158
4121 (UML gdb) i line *268849158
4126 The reason for this is the __restore frame right above the segv_han-
4127 dler frame is hiding the frame that actually segfaulted. So, I have
4128 to get that information from the faulting ip.
4131 1
\b14
\b4.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be 2
\b2 :
\b: T
\bTr
\bra
\bac
\bci
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhr
\bre
\bea
\bad
\bd p
\bpa
\ban
\bni
\bic
\bcs
\bs
4133 The less common and more painful case is when the tracing thread
4134 panics. In this case, the kernel debugger will be useless because it
4135 needs a healthy tracing thread in order to work. The first thing to
4136 do is get a backtrace from the tracing thread. This is done by
4137 figuring out what its pid is, firing up gdb, and attaching it to that
4138 pid. You can figure out the tracing thread pid by looking at the
4139 first line of the console output, which will look like this:
4142 tracing thread pid = 15851
4147 or by running ps on the host and finding the line that looks like
4151 jdike 15851 4.5 0.4 132568 1104 pts/0 S 21:34 0:05 ./linux [(tracing thread)]
4156 If the panic was 'segfault in signals', then follow the instructions
4157 above for collecting information about the location of the seg fault.
4160 If the tracing thread flaked out all by itself, then send that
4161 backtrace in and wait for our crack debugging team to fix the problem.
4164 1
\b14
\b4.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be 3
\b3 :
\b: T
\bTr
\bra
\bac
\bci
\bin
\bng
\bg t
\bth
\bhr
\bre
\bea
\bad
\bd p
\bpa
\ban
\bni
\bic
\bcs
\bs c
\bca
\bau
\bus
\bse
\bed
\bd b
\bby
\by o
\bot
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\br t
\bth
\bhr
\bre
\bea
\bad
\bds
\bs
4166 However, there are cases where the misbehavior of another thread
4167 caused the problem. The most common panic of this type is:
4170 wait_for_stop failed to wait for <pid> to stop with <signal number>
4175 In this case, you'll need to get a backtrace from the process men-
4176 tioned in the panic, which is complicated by the fact that the kernel
4177 debugger is defunct and without some fancy footwork, another gdb can't
4178 attach to it. So, this is how the fancy footwork goes:
4183 host% kill -STOP pid
4188 Run gdb on the tracing thread as described in case 2 and do:
4191 (host gdb) call detach(pid)
4194 If you get a segfault, do it again. It always works the second time.
4196 Detach from the tracing thread and attach to that other thread:
4206 (host gdb) attach pid
4211 If gdb hangs when attaching to that process, go back to a shell and
4221 And then get the backtrace:
4224 (host gdb) backtrace
4230 1
\b14
\b4.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be 4
\b4 :
\b: H
\bHa
\ban
\bng
\bgs
\bs
4232 Hangs seem to be fairly rare, but they sometimes happen. When a hang
4233 happens, we need a backtrace from the offending process. Run the
4234 kernel debugger as described in case 1 and get a backtrace. If the
4235 current process is not the idle thread, then send in the backtrace.
4236 You can tell that it's the idle thread if the stack looks like this:
4239 #0 0x100b1401 in __libc_nanosleep ()
4240 #1 0x100a2885 in idle_sleep (secs=10) at time.c:122
4241 #2 0x100a546f in do_idle () at process_kern.c:445
4242 #3 0x100a5508 in cpu_idle () at process_kern.c:471
4243 #4 0x100ec18f in start_kernel () at init/main.c:592
4244 #5 0x100a3e10 in start_kernel_proc (unused=0x0) at um_arch.c:71
4245 #6 0x100a383f in signal_tramp (arg=0x100a3dd8) at trap_user.c:50
4250 If this is the case, then some other process is at fault, and went to
4251 sleep when it shouldn't have. Run ps on the host and figure out which
4252 process should not have gone to sleep and stayed asleep. Then attach
4253 to it with gdb and get a backtrace as described in case 3.
4260 1
\b15
\b5.
\b. T
\bTh
\bha
\ban
\bnk
\bks
\bs
4263 A number of people have helped this project in various ways, and this
4264 page gives recognition where recognition is due.
4267 If you're listed here and you would prefer a real link on your name,
4268 or no link at all, instead of the despammed email address pseudo-link,
4272 If you're not listed here and you think maybe you should be, please
4273 let me know that as well. I try to get everyone, but sometimes my
4274 bookkeeping lapses and I forget about contributions.
4277 1
\b15
\b5.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. C
\bCo
\bod
\bde
\be a
\ban
\bnd
\bd D
\bDo
\boc
\bcu
\bum
\bme
\ben
\bnt
\bta
\bat
\bti
\bio
\bon
\bn
4279 Rusty Russell <rusty at linuxcare.com.au> -
4281 +
\bo wrote the HOWTO <http://user-mode-
4282 linux.sourceforge.net/UserModeLinux-HOWTO.html>
4284 +
\bo prodded me into making this project official and putting it on
4287 +
\bo came up with the way cool UML logo <http://user-mode-
4288 linux.sourceforge.net/uml-small.png>
4290 +
\bo redid the config process
4293 Peter Moulder <reiter at netspace.net.au> - Fixed my config and build
4294 processes, and added some useful code to the block driver
4297 Bill Stearns <wstearns at pobox.com> -
4301 +
\bo lots of bug reports
4303 +
\bo lots of testing
4305 +
\bo dedicated a box (uml.ists.dartmouth.edu) to support UML development
4307 +
\bo wrote the mkrootfs script, which allows bootable filesystems of
4308 RPM-based distributions to be cranked out
4310 +
\bo cranked out a large number of filesystems with said script
4313 Jim Leu <jleu at mindspring.com> - Wrote the virtual ethernet driver
4314 and associated usermode tools
4316 Lars Brinkhoff <http://lars.nocrew.org/> - Contributed the ptrace
4317 proxy from his own project <http://a386.nocrew.org/> to allow easier
4321 Andrea Arcangeli <andrea at suse.de> - Redid some of the early boot
4322 code so that it would work on machines with Large File Support
4325 Chris Emerson <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cemerson/> - Did
4326 the first UML port to Linux/ppc
4329 Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org> - Wrote the multicast
4330 transport for the network driver
4333 Jorgen Cederlof - Added special file support to hostfs
4336 Greg Lonnon <glonnon at ridgerun dot com> - Changed the ubd driver
4337 to allow it to layer a COW file on a shared read-only filesystem and
4338 wrote the iomem emulation support
4341 Henrik Nordstrom <http://hem.passagen.se/hno/> - Provided a variety
4342 of patches, fixes, and clues
4345 Lennert Buytenhek - Contributed various patches, a rewrite of the
4346 network driver, the first implementation of the mconsole driver, and
4347 did the bulk of the work needed to get SMP working again.
4350 Yon Uriarte - Fixed the TUN/TAP network backend while I slept.
4353 Adam Heath - Made a bunch of nice cleanups to the initialization code,
4354 plus various other small patches.
4357 Matt Zimmerman - Matt volunteered to be the UML Debian maintainer and
4358 is doing a real nice job of it. He also noticed and fixed a number of
4359 actually and potentially exploitable security holes in uml_net. Plus
4360 the occasional patch. I like patches.
4363 James McMechan - James seems to have taken over maintenance of the ubd
4364 driver and is doing a nice job of it.
4367 Chandan Kudige - wrote the umlgdb script which automates the reloading
4371 Steve Schmidtke - wrote the UML slirp transport and hostaudio drivers,
4372 enabling UML processes to access audio devices on the host. He also
4373 submitted patches for the slip transport and lots of other things.
4376 David Coulson <http://davidcoulson.net> -
4378 +
\bo Set up the usermodelinux.org <http://usermodelinux.org> site,
4379 which is a great way of keeping the UML user community on top of
4382 +
\bo Site documentation and updates
4384 +
\bo Nifty little UML management daemon UMLd
4385 <http://uml.openconsultancy.com/umld/>
4387 +
\bo Lots of testing and bug reports
4392 1
\b15
\b5.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. F
\bFl
\blu
\bus
\bsh
\bhi
\bin
\bng
\bg o
\bou
\but
\bt b
\bbu
\bug
\bgs
\bs
4396 +
\bo Yuri Pudgorodsky
4406 +
\bo John H. Hartman
4408 +
\bo Anders Karlsson
4410 +
\bo Daniel Phillips
4414 +
\bo Rainer Burgstaller
4416 +
\bo James Stevenson
4420 +
\bo Cliff Jefferies
4424 +
\bo Lennert Buytenhek
4428 +
\bo Frank Klingenhoefer
4430 +
\bo Livio Baldini Soares
4440 +
\bo Sverker Nilsson
4448 +
\bo Lorenzo Allegrucci
4450 +
\bo Muli Ben-Yehuda
4452 +
\bo David Mansfield
4471 1
\b15
\b5.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. B
\bBu
\bug
\bgl
\ble
\bet
\bts
\bs a
\ban
\bnd
\bd c
\bcl
\ble
\bea
\ban
\bn-
\b-u
\bup
\bps
\bs
4481 +
\bo Brian J. Murrell
4493 +
\bo Sverker Nilsson
4497 +
\bo v.naga srinivas
4509 +
\bo Vincent Guffens
4513 +
\bo Patrick Caulfield
4517 +
\bo Catalin Marinas
4526 +
\bo Lorenzo Colitti
4528 +
\bo Gwendal Grignou
4536 1
\b15
\b5.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be S
\bSt
\btu
\bud
\bdi
\bie
\bes
\bs
4543 +
\bo Michael Richardson
4547 1
\b15
\b5.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. O
\bOt
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\br c
\bco
\bon
\bnt
\btr
\bri
\bib
\bbu
\but
\bti
\bio
\bon
\bns
\bs
4550 Bill Carr <Bill.Carr at compaq.com> made the Red Hat mkrootfs script
4553 Michael Jennings <mikejen at hevanet.com> sent in some material which
4554 is now gracing the top of the index page <http://user-mode-
4555 linux.sourceforge.net/> of this site.
4557 SGI <http://www.sgi.com> (and more specifically Ralf Baechle <ralf at
4558 uni-koblenz.de> ) gave me an account on oss.sgi.com
4559 <http://www.oss.sgi.com> . The bandwidth there made it possible to
4560 produce most of the filesystems available on the project download
4563 Laurent Bonnaud <Laurent.Bonnaud at inpg.fr> took the old grotty
4564 Debian filesystem that I've been distributing and updated it to 2.2.
4565 It is now available by itself here.
4567 Rik van Riel gave me some ftp space on ftp.nl.linux.org so I can make
4568 releases even when Sourceforge is broken.
4570 Rodrigo de Castro looked at my broken pte code and told me what was
4571 wrong with it, letting me fix a long-standing (several weeks) and
4572 serious set of bugs.
4574 Chris Reahard built a specialized root filesystem for running a DNS
4575 server jailed inside UML. It's available from the download
4576 <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/dl-sf.html> page in the Jail
4577 Filesystems section.