Solaris™ Internals: Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris Kernel Architecture, Second Edition

21. kmdb Implementation

Contributed by Matthew Simmons

This chapter broadly explains the implementation of the kernel modular debugging infrastructure.

21.1 Introduction

The best way to understand kmdb is by first understanding how mdb does things. We begin with an overview of the portions of mdb that are relevant to our later discussion of kmdb. For more information about mdb and its operation, consult the Modular Debugger AnswerBook. Having set the stage, we next discuss the major design goals behind kmdb. With those goals in mind, we return to the list of components we discussed from an mdb perspective, analyzing them this time from the point of view of kmdb, showing how their implementation fulfills kmdb’s design goals. Finally, we embark ...