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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/BUG-HUNTING')
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diff --git a/Documentation/BUG-HUNTING b/Documentation/BUG-HUNTING new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..ca29242dbc3 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/BUG-HUNTING @@ -0,0 +1,92 @@ +[Sat Mar 2 10:32:33 PST 1996 KERNEL_BUG-HOWTO lm@sgi.com (Larry McVoy)] + +This is how to track down a bug if you know nothing about kernel hacking. +It's a brute force approach but it works pretty well. + +You need: + + . A reproducible bug - it has to happen predictably (sorry) + . All the kernel tar files from a revision that worked to the + revision that doesn't + +You will then do: + + . Rebuild a revision that you believe works, install, and verify that. + . Do a binary search over the kernels to figure out which one + introduced the bug. I.e., suppose 1.3.28 didn't have the bug, but + you know that 1.3.69 does. Pick a kernel in the middle and build + that, like 1.3.50. Build & test; if it works, pick the mid point + between .50 and .69, else the mid point between .28 and .50. + . You'll narrow it down to the kernel that introduced the bug. You + can probably do better than this but it gets tricky. + + . Narrow it down to a subdirectory + + - Copy kernel that works into "test". Let's say that 3.62 works, + but 3.63 doesn't. So you diff -r those two kernels and come + up with a list of directories that changed. For each of those + directories: + + Copy the non-working directory next to the working directory + as "dir.63". + One directory at time, try moving the working directory to + "dir.62" and mv dir.63 dir"time, try + + mv dir dir.62 + mv dir.63 dir + find dir -name '*.[oa]' -print | xargs rm -f + + And then rebuild and retest. Assuming that all related + changes were contained in the sub directory, this should + isolate the change to a directory. + + Problems: changes in header files may have occurred; I've + found in my case that they were self explanatory - you may + or may not want to give up when that happens. + + . Narrow it down to a file + + - You can apply the same technique to each file in the directory, + hoping that the changes in that file are self contained. + + . Narrow it down to a routine + + - You can take the old file and the new file and manually create + a merged file that has + + #ifdef VER62 + routine() + { + ... + } + #else + routine() + { + ... + } + #endif + + And then walk through that file, one routine at a time and + prefix it with + + #define VER62 + /* both routines here */ + #undef VER62 + + Then recompile, retest, move the ifdefs until you find the one + that makes the difference. + +Finally, you take all the info that you have, kernel revisions, bug +description, the extent to which you have narrowed it down, and pass +that off to whomever you believe is the maintainer of that section. +A post to linux.dev.kernel isn't such a bad idea if you've done some +work to narrow it down. + +If you get it down to a routine, you'll probably get a fix in 24 hours. + +My apologies to Linus and the other kernel hackers for describing this +brute force approach, it's hardly what a kernel hacker would do. However, +it does work and it lets non-hackers help fix bugs. And it is cool +because Linux snapshots will let you do this - something that you can't +do with vendor supplied releases. + |