Debugging kernel drivers

SVR5 and SCO OpenServer 5 include a number of tools to help you debug drivers. These include:

• Kernel debuggers that can set breakpoints, display kernel stack traces and kernel structures, and modify the contents of memory, I/O, and registers. Versions of the scodb debugger are provided for both SVR5 and SCO OpenServer 5, although there are minor differences in their functionality. The kdb debugger is supported only on SVR5. Both kdb and scodb can be linked into the SVR5 kernel at the same time, although only one is the current debugger. Use the newdebug command to toggle between kdb and scodb as the current debugger.

  For more information, see:

  • ``Using crash and the kernel debuggers''

  • ``Entering a kernel debugger from a driver''

  • kdb

  • ``Using SCODB on SVR5''

  • ``Using SCODB on SCO OpenServer 5''

• Coding debug sections into the driver itself, to trace the driver's execution and to force a system panic under certain conditions.

• Using the crash or crash(ADM) command.

• Using appropriate test suites. See the Section 1Mcert manual pages for information about the test suites that are provided with the HDK.

See ``Driver testing and debugging'' for a full overview of the testing facilities that are provided with the set.

Appendix B of Peter Kettle and Steve Statler, Writing Device Drivers for SCO UNIX discusses debugging techniques for debugging drivers and lists some common driver errors for SCO OpenServer 5 drivers.