Eric Long writes:

In debugging a network kernel extension, can I use gdb, or do I have to use

ddb? I'm manually loading and unloading the kext. It seems like I should

be able to use gdb.

You can use gdb. I think using ddb requires a kernel rebuild.

Is it required that I debug remotely, or can I debug on the same machine the

extension is running on? --Is that a dumb question? (-:

Yes, you must debug remotely. Local postmortem debugging is impossible, since OSX doesn't use a swap partition, and doesn't have the (highly useful) concept of crashdumps. However, you needn't debug on another mac. You can pull the gdb source from cvs and build a gdb which will work on another unix box. I debug on FreeBSD. I'd be happy to share the gdb binary... I've left it at http://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/macgdb.gz Read http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/documentation/howto/html/kext_tutor... to get started debugging.

I haven't tried debugging in the kernel before. I found a document called

"KernelProgramming.pdf" that provided a lot of instructions, which I've

looked at, but it wasn't totally clear on these points. It only talks about

remote debugging, but doesn't explicitly say that local debugging is out.

If a breakpoint brings the whole kernel to a stop, then it makes sense that

debugging would have to be done remotely only.

Not entirely. If OSX had a libkvm and gdb support for it, you could at least examine variables locally while the machine is live. This can be very useful. As it is now, you must halt the machine and attach a remote debugger. Drew _______________________________________________ darwin-kernel mailing list | darwin-kernel@lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/darwin-kernel Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.