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
1187 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
1189 TUN/TAP is the preferred mechanism on 2.4 to exchange packets with the
1190 host. The TUN/TAP backend has been in UML since 2.4.9-3um.
1193 The easiest way to get up and running is to let the setuid uml_net
1194 helper do the host setup for you. This involves insmod-ing the tun.o
1195 module if necessary, configuring the device, and setting up IP
1196 forwarding, routing, and proxy arp. If you are new to UML networking,
1197 do this first. If you're concerned about the security implications of
1198 the setuid helper, use it to get up and running, then read the next
1199 section to see how to have UML use a preconfigured tap device, which
1200 avoids the use of uml_net.
1203 If you specify an IP address for the host side of the device, the
1204 uml_net helper will do all necessary setup on the host - the only
1205 requirement is that TUN/TAP be available, either built in to the host
1206 kernel or as the tun.o module.
1208 The format of the command line switch to attach a device to a TUN/TAP
1212 eth <n> =tuntap,,, <IP address>
1217 For example, this argument will attach the UML's eth0 to the next
1218 available tap device and assign an ethernet address to it based on its
1222 eth0=tuntap,,,192.168.0.254
1229 Note that the IP address that must be used for the eth device inside
1230 UML is fixed by the routing and proxy arp that is set up on the
1231 TUN/TAP device on the host. You can use a different one, but it won't
1232 work because reply packets won't reach the UML. This is a feature.
1233 It prevents a nasty UML user from doing things like setting the UML IP
1234 to the same as the network's nameserver or mail server.
1237 There are a couple potential problems with running the TUN/TAP
1238 transport on a 2.4 host kernel
1240 +
\bo TUN/TAP seems not to work on 2.4.3 and earlier. Upgrade the host
1241 kernel or use the ethertap transport.
1243 +
\bo With an upgraded kernel, TUN/TAP may fail with
1246 File descriptor in bad state
1251 This is due to a header mismatch between the upgraded kernel and the
1252 kernel that was originally installed on the machine. The fix is to
1253 make sure that /usr/src/linux points to the headers for the running
1256 These were pointed out by Tim Robinson <timro at trkr dot net> in
1257 <http://www.geocrawler.com/> name="this uml-
1262 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
1264 If you prefer not to have UML use uml_net (which is somewhat
1265 insecure), with UML 2.4.17-11, you can set up a TUN/TAP device
1266 beforehand. The setup needs to be done as root, but once that's done,
1267 there is no need for root assistance. Setting up the device is done
1270 +
\bo Create the device with tunctl (available from the UML utilities
1281 where uid is the user id or username that UML will be run as. This
1282 will tell you what device was created.
1284 +
\bo Configure the device IP (change IP addresses and device name to
1290 host# ifconfig tap0 192.168.0.254 up
1296 +
\bo Set up routing and arping if desired - this is my recipe, there are
1297 other ways of doing the same thing
1301 bash -c 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward'
1304 route add -host 192.168.0.253 dev tap0
1312 bash -c 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tap0/proxy_arp'
1320 arp -Ds 192.168.0.253 eth0 pub
1325 Note that this must be done every time the host boots - this configu-
1326 ration is not stored across host reboots. So, it's probably a good
1327 idea to stick it in an rc file. An even better idea would be a little
1328 utility which reads the information from a config file and sets up
1329 devices at boot time.
1331 +
\bo Rather than using up two IPs and ARPing for one of them, you can
1332 also provide direct access to your LAN by the UML by using a
1345 ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 promisc up
1353 ifconfig tap0 0.0.0.0 promisc up
1361 ifconfig br0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
1386 brctl sethello br0 1
1394 brctl addif br0 eth0
1402 brctl addif br0 tap0
1407 Note that 'br0' should be setup using ifconfig with the existing IP
1408 address of eth0, as eth0 no longer has its own IP.
1413 Also, the /dev/net/tun device must be writable by the user running
1414 UML in order for the UML to use the device that's been configured
1415 for it. The simplest thing to do is
1418 host# chmod 666 /dev/net/tun
1423 Making it world-writable looks bad, but it seems not to be
1424 exploitable as a security hole. However, it does allow anyone to cre-
1425 ate useless tap devices (useless because they can't configure them),
1426 which is a DOS attack. A somewhat more secure alternative would to be
1427 to create a group containing all the users who have preconfigured tap
1428 devices and chgrp /dev/net/tun to that group with mode 664 or 660.
1431 +
\bo Once the device is set up, run UML with 'eth0=tuntap,device name'
1432 (i.e. 'eth0=tuntap,tap0') on the command line (or do it with the
1433 mconsole config command).
1435 +
\bo Bring the eth device up in UML and you're in business.
1437 If you don't want that tap device any more, you can make it non-
1441 host# tunctl -d tap device
1446 Finally, tunctl has a -b (for brief mode) switch which causes it to
1447 output only the name of the tap device it created. This makes it
1448 suitable for capture by a script:
1451 host# TAP=`tunctl -u 1000 -b`
1458 6
\b6.
\b.8
\b8.
\b. E
\bEt
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\brt
\bta
\bap
\bp
1460 Ethertap is the general mechanism on 2.2 for userspace processes to
1461 exchange packets with the kernel.
1465 To use this transport, you need to describe the virtual network device
1466 on the UML command line. The general format for this is
1469 eth <n> =ethertap, <device> , <ethernet address> , <tap IP address>
1474 So, the previous example
1477 eth0=ethertap,tap0,fe:fd:0:0:0:1,192.168.0.254
1482 attaches the UML eth0 device to the host /dev/tap0, assigns it the
1483 ethernet address fe:fd:0:0:0:1, and assigns the IP address
1484 192.168.0.254 to the tap device.
1488 The tap device is mandatory, but the others are optional. If the
1489 ethernet address is omitted, one will be assigned to it.
1492 The presence of the tap IP address will cause the helper to run and do
1493 whatever host setup is needed to allow the virtual machine to
1494 communicate with the outside world. If you're not sure you know what
1495 you're doing, this is the way to go.
1498 If it is absent, then you must configure the tap device and whatever
1499 arping and routing you will need on the host. However, even in this
1500 case, the uml_net helper still needs to be in your path and it must be
1501 setuid root if you're not running UML as root. This is because the
1502 tap device doesn't support SIGIO, which UML needs in order to use
1503 something as a source of input. So, the helper is used as a
1504 convenient asynchronous IO thread.
1506 If you're using the uml_net helper, you can ignore the following host
1507 setup - uml_net will do it for you. You just need to make sure you
1508 have ethertap available, either built in to the host kernel or
1509 available as a module.
1512 If you want to set things up yourself, you need to make sure that the
1513 appropriate /dev entry exists. If it doesn't, become root and create
1517 mknod /dev/tap <minor> c 36 <minor> + 16
1522 For example, this is how to create /dev/tap0:
1525 mknod /dev/tap0 c 36 0 + 16
1530 You also need to make sure that the host kernel has ethertap support.
1531 If ethertap is enabled as a module, you apparently need to insmod
1532 ethertap once for each ethertap device you want to enable. So,
1541 will give you the tap0 interface. To get the tap1 interface, you need
1546 insmod ethertap unit=1 -o ethertap1
1554 6
\b6.
\b.9
\b9.
\b. T
\bTh
\bhe
\be s
\bsw
\bwi
\bit
\btc
\bch
\bh d
\bda
\bae
\bem
\bmo
\bon
\bn
1556 N
\bNo
\bot
\bte
\be: This is the daemon formerly known as uml_router, but which was
1557 renamed so the network weenies of the world would stop growling at me.
1560 The switch daemon, uml_switch, provides a mechanism for creating a
1561 totally virtual network. By default, it provides no connection to the
1562 host network (but see -tap, below).
1565 The first thing you need to do is run the daemon. Running it with no
1566 arguments will make it listen on a default pair of unix domain
1570 If you want it to listen on a different pair of sockets, use
1573 -unix control socket data socket
1579 If you want it to act as a hub rather than a switch, use
1588 If you want the switch to be connected to host networking (allowing
1589 the umls to get access to the outside world through the host), use
1598 Note that the tap device must be preconfigured (see "TUN/TAP with a
1599 preconfigured tap device", above). If you're using a different tap
1600 device than tap0, specify that instead of tap0.
1603 uml_switch can be backgrounded as follows
1607 uml_switch [ options ] < /dev/null > /dev/null
1612 The reason it doesn't background by default is that it listens to
1613 stdin for EOF. When it sees that, it exits.
1616 The general format of the kernel command line switch is
1620 ethn=daemon,ethernet address,socket
1621 type,control socket,data socket
1626 You can leave off everything except the 'daemon'. You only need to
1627 specify the ethernet address if the one that will be assigned to it
1628 isn't acceptable for some reason. The rest of the arguments describe
1629 how to communicate with the daemon. You should only specify them if
1630 you told the daemon to use different sockets than the default. So, if
1631 you ran the daemon with no arguments, running the UML on the same
1638 will cause the eth0 driver to attach itself to the daemon correctly.
1642 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b10
\b0.
\b. S
\bSl
\bli
\bip
\bp
1644 Slip is another, less general, mechanism for a process to communicate
1645 with the host networking. In contrast to the ethertap interface,
1646 which exchanges ethernet frames with the host and can be used to
1647 transport any higher-level protocol, it can only be used to transport
1651 The general format of the command line switch is
1660 The slip IP argument is the IP address that will be assigned to the
1661 host end of the slip device. If it is specified, the helper will run
1662 and will set up the host so that the virtual machine can reach it and
1663 the rest of the network.
1666 There are some oddities with this interface that you should be aware
1667 of. You should only specify one slip device on a given virtual
1668 machine, and its name inside UML will be 'umn', not 'eth0' or whatever
1669 you specified on the command line. These problems will be fixed at
1674 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b11
\b1.
\b. S
\bSl
\bli
\bir
\brp
\bp
1676 slirp uses an external program, usually /usr/bin/slirp, to provide IP
1677 only networking connectivity through the host. This is similar to IP
1678 masquerading with a firewall, although the translation is performed in
1679 user-space, rather than by the kernel. As slirp does not set up any
1680 interfaces on the host, or changes routing, slirp does not require
1681 root access or setuid binaries on the host.
1684 The general format of the command line switch for slirp is:
1688 ethn=slirp,ethernet address,slirp path
1693 The ethernet address is optional, as UML will set up the interface
1694 with an ethernet address based upon the initial IP address of the
1695 interface. The slirp path is generally /usr/bin/slirp, although it
1696 will depend on distribution.
1699 The slirp program can have a number of options passed to the command
1700 line and we can't add them to the UML command line, as they will be
1701 parsed incorrectly. Instead, a wrapper shell script can be written or
1702 the options inserted into the /.slirprc file. More information on
1703 all of the slirp options can be found in its man pages.
1706 The eth0 interface on UML should be set up with the IP 10.2.0.15,
1707 although you can use anything as long as it is not used by a network
1708 you will be connecting to. The default route on UML should be set to
1713 route add default dev eth0
1718 slirp provides a number of useful IP addresses which can be used by
1719 UML, such as 10.0.2.3 which is an alias for the DNS server specified
1720 in /etc/resolv.conf on the host or the IP given in the 'dns' option
1724 Even with a baudrate setting higher than 115200, the slirp connection
1725 is limited to 115200. If you need it to go faster, the slirp binary
1726 needs to be compiled with FULL_BOLT defined in config.h.
1730 6
\b6.
\b.1
\b12
\b2.
\b. p
\bpc
\bca
\bap
\bp
1732 The pcap transport is attached to a UML ethernet device on the command
1733 line or with uml_mconsole with the following syntax:
1737 ethn=pcap,host interface,filter
1738 expression,option1,option2
1743 The expression and options are optional.
1746 The interface is whatever network device on the host you want to
1747 sniff. The expression is a pcap filter expression, which is also what
1748 tcpdump uses, so if you know how to specify tcpdump filters, you will
1749 use the same expressions here. The options are up to two of
1750 'promisc', control whether pcap puts the host interface into
1751 promiscuous mode. 'optimize' and 'nooptimize' control whether the pcap
1752 expression optimizer is used.
1765 will cause the UML eth0 to emit all tcp packets on the host eth0 and
1766 the UML eth1 to emit all non-tcp packets on the host eth0.
1770 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
1772 If you don't specify an address for the host side of the ethertap or
1773 slip device, UML won't do any setup on the host. So this is what is
1774 needed to get things working (the examples use a host-side IP of
1775 192.168.0.251 and a UML-side IP of 192.168.0.250 - adjust to suit your
1778 +
\bo The device needs to be configured with its IP address. Tap devices
1779 are also configured with an mtu of 1484. Slip devices are
1780 configured with a point-to-point address pointing at the UML ip
1784 host# ifconfig tap0 arp mtu 1484 192.168.0.251 up
1792 ifconfig sl0 192.168.0.251 pointopoint 192.168.0.250 up
1798 +
\bo If a tap device is being set up, a route is set to the UML IP.
1801 UML# route add -host 192.168.0.250 gw 192.168.0.251
1807 +
\bo To allow other hosts on your network to see the virtual machine,
1808 proxy arp is set up for it.
1811 host# arp -Ds 192.168.0.250 eth0 pub
1817 +
\bo Finally, the host is set up to route packets.
1820 host# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
1831 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
1836 7
\b7.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. A
\bA w
\bwa
\bar
\brn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg
1838 Don't attempt to share filesystems simply by booting two UMLs from the
1839 same file. That's the same thing as booting two physical machines
1840 from a shared disk. It will result in filesystem corruption.
1844 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
1846 The way to share a filesystem between two virtual machines is to use
1847 the copy-on-write (COW) layering capability of the ubd block driver.
1848 As of 2.4.6-2um, the driver supports layering a read-write private
1849 device over a read-only shared device. A machine's writes are stored
1850 in the private device, while reads come from either device - the
1851 private one if the requested block is valid in it, the shared one if
1852 not. Using this scheme, the majority of data which is unchanged is
1853 shared between an arbitrary number of virtual machines, each of which
1854 has a much smaller file containing the changes that it has made. With
1855 a large number of UMLs booting from a large root filesystem, this
1856 leads to a huge disk space saving. It will also help performance,
1857 since the host will be able to cache the shared data using a much
1858 smaller amount of memory, so UML disk requests will be served from the
1859 host's memory rather than its disks.
1864 To add a copy-on-write layer to an existing block device file, simply
1865 add the name of the COW file to the appropriate ubd switch:
1868 ubd0=root_fs_cow,root_fs_debian_22
1873 where 'root_fs_cow' is the private COW file and 'root_fs_debian_22' is
1874 the existing shared filesystem. The COW file need not exist. If it
1875 doesn't, the driver will create and initialize it. Once the COW file
1876 has been initialized, it can be used on its own on the command line:
1884 The name of the backing file is stored in the COW file header, so it
1885 would be redundant to continue specifying it on the command line.
1889 7
\b7.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. N
\bNo
\bot
\bte
\be!
\b!
1891 When checking the size of the COW file in order to see the gobs of
1892 space that you're saving, make sure you use 'ls -ls' to see the actual
1893 disk consumption rather than the length of the file. The COW file is
1894 sparse, so the length will be very different from the disk usage.
1895 Here is a 'ls -l' of a COW file and backing file from one boot and
1897 host% ls -l cow.debian debian2.2
1898 -rw-r--r-- 1 jdike jdike 492504064 Aug 6 21:16 cow.debian
1899 -rwxrw-rw- 1 jdike jdike 537919488 Aug 6 20:42 debian2.2
1904 Doesn't look like much saved space, does it? Well, here's 'ls -ls':
1907 host% ls -ls cow.debian debian2.2
1908 880 -rw-r--r-- 1 jdike jdike 492504064 Aug 6 21:16 cow.debian
1909 525832 -rwxrw-rw- 1 jdike jdike 537919488 Aug 6 20:42 debian2.2
1914 Now, you can see that the COW file has less than a meg of disk, rather
1919 7
\b7.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. A
\bAn
\bno
\bot
\bth
\bhe
\ber
\br w
\bwa
\bar
\brn
\bni
\bin
\bng
\bg
1921 Once a filesystem is being used as a readonly backing file for a COW
1922 file, do not boot directly from it or modify it in any way. Doing so
1923 will invalidate any COW files that are using it. The mtime and size
1924 of the backing file are stored in the COW file header at its creation,
1925 and they must continue to match. If they don't, the driver will
1926 refuse to use the COW file.
1931 If you attempt to evade this restriction by changing either the
1932 backing file or the COW header by hand, you will get a corrupted
1938 Among other things, this means that upgrading the distribution in a
1939 backing file and expecting that all of the COW files using it will see
1940 the upgrade will not work.
1945 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
1947 Depending on how you use UML and COW devices, it may be advisable to
1948 merge the changes in the COW file into the backing file every once in
1954 The utility that does this is uml_moo. Its usage is
1957 host% uml_moo COW file new backing file
1962 There's no need to specify the backing file since that information is
1963 already in the COW file header. If you're paranoid, boot the new
1964 merged file, and if you're happy with it, move it over the old backing
1970 uml_moo creates a new backing file by default as a safety measure. It
1971 also has a destructive merge option which will merge the COW file
1972 directly into its current backing file. This is really only usable
1973 when the backing file only has one COW file associated with it. If
1974 there are multiple COWs associated with a backing file, a -d merge of
1975 one of them will invalidate all of the others. However, it is
1976 convenient if you're short of disk space, and it should also be
1977 noticeably faster than a non-destructive merge.
1982 uml_moo is installed with the UML deb and RPM. If you didn't install
1983 UML from one of those packages, you can also get it from the UML
1984 utilities <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/
1985 utilities> tar file in tools/moo.
1994 8
\b8.
\b. C
\bCr
\bre
\bea
\bat
\bti
\bin
\bng
\bg f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\bes
\bsy
\bys
\bst
\bte
\bem
\bms
\bs
1997 You may want to create and mount new UML filesystems, either because
1998 your root filesystem isn't large enough or because you want to use a
1999 filesystem other than ext2.
2002 This was written on the occasion of reiserfs being included in the
2003 2.4.1 kernel pool, and therefore the 2.4.1 UML, so the examples will
2004 talk about reiserfs. This information is generic, and the examples
2005 should be easy to translate to the filesystem of your choice.
2008 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
2010 dd is your friend. All you need to do is tell dd to create an empty
2011 file of the appropriate size. I usually make it sparse to save time
2012 and to avoid allocating disk space until it's actually used. For
2013 example, the following command will create a sparse 100 meg file full
2018 dd if=/dev/zero of=new_filesystem seek=100 count=1 bs=1M
2025 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
2027 Add an argument like the following to the UML command line:
2034 making sure that you use an unassigned ubd device number.
2038 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
2040 Make sure that the filesystem is available, either by being built into
2041 the kernel, or available as a module, then boot up UML and log in. If
2042 the root filesystem doesn't have the filesystem utilities (mkfs, fsck,
2043 etc), then get them into UML by way of the net or hostfs.
2046 Make the new filesystem on the device assigned to the new file:
2049 host# mkreiserfs /dev/ubd/4
2052 <----------- MKREISERFSv2 ----------->
2054 ReiserFS version 3.6.25
2055 Block size 4096 bytes
2058 Journal - 8192 blocks (18-8209), journal header is in block 8210
2062 ATTENTION: ALL DATA WILL BE LOST ON '/dev/ubd/4'! (y/n)y
2063 journal size 8192 (from 18)
2064 Initializing journal - 0%....20%....40%....60%....80%....100%
2074 mount /dev/ubd/4 /mnt
2079 and you're in business.
2089 9
\b9.
\b. H
\bHo
\bos
\bst
\bt f
\bfi
\bil
\ble
\be a
\bac
\bcc
\bce
\bes
\bss
\bs
2092 If you want to access files on the host machine from inside UML, you
2093 can treat it as a separate machine and either nfs mount directories
2094 from the host or copy files into the virtual machine with scp or rcp.
2095 However, since UML is running on the host, it can access those
2096 files just like any other process and make them available inside the
2097 virtual machine without needing to use the network.
2100 This is now possible with the hostfs virtual filesystem. With it, you
2101 can mount a host directory into the UML filesystem and access the
2102 files contained in it just as you would on the host.
2105 9
\b9.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. U
\bUs
\bsi
\bin
\bng
\bg h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\btf
\bfs
\bs
2107 To begin with, make sure that hostfs is available inside the virtual
2111 UML# cat /proc/filesystems
2115 . hostfs should be listed. If it's not, either rebuild the kernel
2116 with hostfs configured into it or make sure that hostfs is built as a
2117 module and available inside the virtual machine, and insmod it.
2120 Now all you need to do is run mount:
2123 UML# mount none /mnt/host -t hostfs
2128 will mount the host's / on the virtual machine's /mnt/host.
2131 If you don't want to mount the host root directory, then you can
2132 specify a subdirectory to mount with the -o switch to mount:
2135 UML# mount none /mnt/home -t hostfs -o /home
2140 will mount the hosts's /home on the virtual machine's /mnt/home.
2144 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
2146 It's possible to boot from a directory hierarchy on the host using
2147 hostfs rather than using the standard filesystem in a file.
2149 To start, you need that hierarchy. The easiest way is to loop mount
2150 an existing root_fs file:
2153 host# mount root_fs uml_root_dir -o loop
2158 You need to change the filesystem type of / in etc/fstab to be
2159 'hostfs', so that line looks like this:
2161 /dev/ubd/0 / hostfs defaults 1 1
2166 Then you need to chown to yourself all the files in that directory
2167 that are owned by root. This worked for me:
2170 host# find . -uid 0 -exec chown jdike {} \;
2175 Next, make sure that your UML kernel has hostfs compiled in, not as a
2176 module. Then run UML with the boot device pointing at that directory:
2179 ubd0=/path/to/uml/root/directory
2184 UML should then boot as it does normally.
2187 9
\b9.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. B
\bBu
\bui
\bil
\bld
\bdi
\bin
\bng
\bg h
\bho
\bos
\bst
\btf
\bfs
\bs
2189 If you need to build hostfs because it's not in your kernel, you have
2194 +
\bo Compiling hostfs into the kernel:
2197 Reconfigure the kernel and set the 'Host filesystem' option under
2200 +
\bo Compiling hostfs as a module:
2203 Reconfigure the kernel and set the 'Host filesystem' option under
2204 be in arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o. Install that in
2205 /lib/modules/`uname -r`/fs in the virtual machine, boot it up, and
2221 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
2225 The UML management console is a low-level interface to the kernel,
2226 somewhat like the i386 SysRq interface. Since there is a full-blown
2227 operating system under UML, there is much greater flexibility possible
2228 than with the SysRq mechanism.
2231 There are a number of things you can do with the mconsole interface:
2233 +
\bo get the kernel version
2235 +
\bo add and remove devices
2237 +
\bo halt or reboot the machine
2239 +
\bo Send SysRq commands
2241 +
\bo Pause and resume the UML
2244 You need the mconsole client (uml_mconsole) which is present in CVS
2245 (/tools/mconsole) in 2.4.5-9um and later, and will be in the RPM in
2249 You also need CONFIG_MCONSOLE (under 'General Setup') enabled in UML.
2250 When you boot UML, you'll see a line like:
2253 mconsole initialized on /home/jdike/.uml/umlNJ32yL/mconsole
2258 If you specify a unique machine id one the UML command line, i.e.
2269 mconsole initialized on /home/jdike/.uml/debian/mconsole
2274 That file is the socket that uml_mconsole will use to communicate with
2275 UML. Run it with either the umid or the full path as its argument:
2278 host% uml_mconsole debian
2286 host% uml_mconsole /home/jdike/.uml/debian/mconsole
2291 You'll get a prompt, at which you can run one of these commands:
2314 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.1
\b1.
\b. v
\bve
\ber
\brs
\bsi
\bio
\bon
\bn
2316 This takes no arguments. It prints the UML version.
2320 OK Linux usermode 2.4.5-9um #1 Wed Jun 20 22:47:08 EDT 2001 i686
2325 There are a couple actual uses for this. It's a simple no-op which
2326 can be used to check that a UML is running. It's also a way of
2327 sending an interrupt to the UML. This is sometimes useful on SMP
2328 hosts, where there's a bug which causes signals to UML to be lost,
2329 often causing it to appear to hang. Sending such a UML the mconsole
2330 version command is a good way to 'wake it up' before networking has
2331 been enabled, as it does not do anything to the function of the UML.
2335 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.2
\b2.
\b. h
\bha
\bal
\blt
\bt a
\ban
\bnd
\bd r
\bre
\beb
\bbo
\boo
\bot
\bt
2337 These take no arguments. They shut the machine down immediately, with
2338 no syncing of disks and no clean shutdown of userspace. So, they are
2339 pretty close to crashing the machine.
2350 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.3
\b3.
\b. c
\bco
\bon
\bnf
\bfi
\big
\bg
2352 "config" adds a new device to the virtual machine. Currently the ubd
2353 and network drivers support this. It takes one argument, which is the
2354 device to add, with the same syntax as the kernel command line.
2360 config ubd3=/home/jdike/incoming/roots/root_fs_debian22
2363 (mconsole) config eth1=mcast
2371 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. r
\bre
\bem
\bmo
\bov
\bve
\be
2373 "remove" deletes a device from the system. Its argument is just the
2374 name of the device to be removed. The device must be idle in whatever
2375 sense the driver considers necessary. In the case of the ubd driver,
2376 the removed block device must not be mounted, swapped on, or otherwise
2377 open, and in the case of the network driver, the device must be down.
2380 (mconsole) remove ubd3
2382 (mconsole) remove eth1
2390 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.5
\b5.
\b. s
\bsy
\bys
\bsr
\brq
\bq
2392 This takes one argument, which is a single letter. It calls the
2393 generic kernel's SysRq driver, which does whatever is called for by
2394 that argument. See the SysRq documentation in Documentation/sysrq.txt
2395 in your favorite kernel tree to see what letters are valid and what
2400 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.6
\b6.
\b. h
\bhe
\bel
\blp
\bp
2402 "help" returns a string listing the valid commands and what each one
2407 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.7
\b7.
\b. c
\bca
\bad
\bd
2409 This invokes the Ctl-Alt-Del action on init. What exactly this ends
2410 up doing is up to /etc/inittab. Normally, it reboots the machine.
2411 With UML, this is usually not desired, so if a halt would be better,
2412 then find the section of inittab that looks like this
2415 # What to do when CTRL-ALT-DEL is pressed.
2416 ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now
2421 and change the command to halt.
2425 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.8
\b8.
\b. s
\bst
\bto
\bop
\bp
2427 This puts the UML in a loop reading mconsole requests until a 'go'
2428 mconsole command is received. This is very useful for making backups
2429 of UML filesystems, as the UML can be stopped, then synced via 'sysrq
2430 s', so that everything is written to the filesystem. You can then copy
2431 the filesystem and then send the UML 'go' via mconsole.
2434 Note that a UML running with more than one CPU will have problems
2435 after you send the 'stop' command, as only one CPU will be held in a
2436 mconsole loop and all others will continue as normal. This is a bug,
2441 1
\b10
\b0.
\b.9
\b9.
\b. g
\bgo
\bo
2443 This resumes a UML after being paused by a 'stop' command. Note that
2444 when the UML has resumed, TCP connections may have timed out and if
2445 the UML is paused for a long period of time, crond might go a little
2446 crazy, running all the jobs it didn't do earlier.
2455 1
\b11
\b1.
\b. K
\bKe
\ber
\brn
\bne
\bel
\bl d
\bde
\beb
\bbu
\bug
\bgg
\bgi
\bin
\bng
\bg
2458 N
\bNo
\bot
\bte
\be:
\b: The interface that makes debugging, as described here, possible
2459 is present in 2.4.0-test6 kernels and later.
2462 Since the user-mode kernel runs as a normal Linux process, it is
2463 possible to debug it with gdb almost like any other process. It is
2464 slightly different because the kernel's threads are already being
2465 ptraced for system call interception, so gdb can't ptrace them.
2466 However, a mechanism has been added to work around that problem.
2469 In order to debug the kernel, you need build it from source. See
2470 ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' for information on doing that.
2471 Make sure that you enable CONFIG_DEBUGSYM and CONFIG_PT_PROXY during
2472 the config. These will compile the kernel with -g, and enable the
2473 ptrace proxy so that gdb works with UML, respectively.
2478 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
2480 You can have the kernel running under the control of gdb from the
2481 beginning by putting 'debug' on the command line. You will get an
2482 xterm with gdb running inside it. The kernel will send some commands
2483 to gdb which will leave it stopped at the beginning of start_kernel.
2484 At this point, you can get things going with 'next', 'step', or
2488 There is a transcript of a debugging session here <debug-
2489 session.html> , with breakpoints being set in the scheduler and in an
2491 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
2493 Not every bug is evident in the currently running process. Sometimes,
2494 processes hang in the kernel when they shouldn't because they've
2495 deadlocked on a semaphore or something similar. In this case, when
2496 you ^C gdb and get a backtrace, you will see the idle thread, which
2497 isn't very relevant.
2500 What you want is the stack of whatever process is sleeping when it
2501 shouldn't be. You need to figure out which process that is, which is
2502 generally fairly easy. Then you need to get its host process id,
2503 which you can do either by looking at ps on the host or at
2504 task.thread.extern_pid in gdb.
2507 Now what you do is this:
2509 +
\bo detach from the current thread
2518 +
\bo attach to the thread you are interested in
2521 (UML gdb) att <host pid>
2527 +
\bo look at its stack and anything else of interest
2535 Note that you can't do anything at this point that requires that a
2536 process execute, e.g. calling a function
2538 +
\bo when you're done looking at that process, reattach to the current
2539 thread and continue it
2556 Here, specifying any pid which is not the process id of a UML thread
2557 will cause gdb to reattach to the current thread. I commonly use 1,
2558 but any other invalid pid would work.
2562 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
2564 ddd works on UML, but requires a special kludge. The process goes
2576 +
\bo With ps, get the pid of the gdb that ddd started. You can ask the
2577 gdb to tell you, but for some reason that confuses things and
2580 +
\bo run UML with 'debug=parent gdb-pid=<pid>' added to the command line
2581 - it will just sit there after you hit return
2583 +
\bo type 'att 1' to the ddd gdb and you will see something like
2586 0xa013dc51 in __kill ()
2595 +
\bo At this point, type 'c', UML will boot up, and you can use ddd just
2596 as you do on any other process.
2600 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
2602 gdb has support for debugging code which is dynamically loaded into
2603 the process. This support is what is needed to debug kernel modules
2607 Using that support is somewhat complicated. You have to tell gdb what
2608 object file you just loaded into UML and where in memory it is. Then,
2609 it can read the symbol table, and figure out where all the symbols are
2610 from the load address that you provided. It gets more interesting
2611 when you load the module again (i.e. after an rmmod). You have to
2612 tell gdb to forget about all its symbols, including the main UML ones
2613 for some reason, then load then all back in again.
2616 There's an easy way and a hard way to do this. The easy way is to use
2617 the umlgdb expect script written by Chandan Kudige. It basically
2618 automates the process for you.
2621 First, you must tell it where your modules are. There is a list in
2622 the script that looks like this:
2624 "fat" "/usr/src/uml/linux-2.4.18/fs/fat/fat.o"
2625 "isofs" "/usr/src/uml/linux-2.4.18/fs/isofs/isofs.o"
2626 "minix" "/usr/src/uml/linux-2.4.18/fs/minix/minix.o"
2632 You change that to list the names and paths of the modules that you
2633 are going to debug. Then you run it from the toplevel directory of
2634 your UML pool and it basically tells you what to do:
2639 ******** GDB pid is 21903 ********
2640 Start UML as: ./linux <kernel switches> debug gdb-pid=21903
2644 GNU gdb 5.0rh-5 Red Hat Linux 7.1
2645 Copyright 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2646 GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
2647 welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
2648 Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
2649 There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
2650 This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
2651 (gdb) b sys_init_module
2652 Breakpoint 1 at 0xa0011923: file module.c, line 349.
2658 After you run UML and it sits there doing nothing, you hit return at
2659 the 'att 1' and continue it:
2662 Attaching to program: /home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/./linux, process 1
2663 0xa00f4221 in __kill ()
2670 At this point, you debug normally. When you insmod something, the
2671 expect magic will kick in and you'll see something like:
2689 *** Module hostfs loaded ***
2690 Breakpoint 1, sys_init_module (name_user=0x805abb0 "hostfs",
2691 mod_user=0x8070e00) at module.c:349
2692 349 char *name, *n_name, *name_tmp = NULL;
2694 Run till exit from #0 sys_init_module (name_user=0x805abb0 "hostfs",
2695 mod_user=0x8070e00) at module.c:349
2696 0xa00e2e23 in execute_syscall (r=0xa8140284) at syscall_kern.c:411
2697 411 else res = EXECUTE_SYSCALL(syscall, regs);
2698 Value returned is $1 = 0
2700 p/x (int)module_list + module_list->size_of_struct
2703 (UML gdb) symbol-file ./linux
2704 Load new symbol table from "./linux"? (y or n) y
2705 Reading symbols from ./linux...
2708 add-symbol-file /home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o 0xa9021054
2710 add symbol table from file "/home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o" at
2711 .text_addr = 0xa9021054
2714 Reading symbols from /home/jdike/linux/2.4/um/arch/um/fs/hostfs/hostfs.o...
2716 (UML gdb) p *module_list
2717 $1 = {size_of_struct = 84, next = 0xa0178720, name = 0xa9022de0 "hostfs",
2718 size = 9016, uc = {usecount = {counter = 0}, pad = 0}, flags = 1,
2719 nsyms = 57, ndeps = 0, syms = 0xa9023170, deps = 0x0, refs = 0x0,
2720 init = 0xa90221f0 <init_hostfs>, cleanup = 0xa902222c <exit_hostfs>,
2721 ex_table_start = 0x0, ex_table_end = 0x0, persist_start = 0x0,
2722 persist_end = 0x0, can_unload = 0, runsize = 0, kallsyms_start = 0x0,
2724 archdata_start = 0x1b855 <Address 0x1b855 out of bounds>,
2725 archdata_end = 0xe5890000 <Address 0xe5890000 out of bounds>,
2726 kernel_data = 0xf689c35d <Address 0xf689c35d out of bounds>}
2727 >> Finished loading symbols for hostfs ...
2732 That's the easy way. It's highly recommended. The hard way is
2733 described below in case you're interested in what's going on.
2736 Boot the kernel under the debugger and load the module with insmod or
2737 modprobe. With gdb, do:
2740 (UML gdb) p module_list
2745 This is a list of modules that have been loaded into the kernel, with
2746 the most recently loaded module first. Normally, the module you want
2747 is at module_list. If it's not, walk down the next links, looking at
2748 the name fields until find the module you want to debug. Take the
2749 address of that structure, and add module.size_of_struct (which in
2750 2.4.10 kernels is 96 (0x60)) to it. Gdb can make this hard addition
2756 printf "%#x\n", (int)module_list module_list->size_of_struct
2761 The offset from the module start occasionally changes (before 2.4.0,
2762 it was module.size_of_struct + 4), so it's a good idea to check the
2763 init and cleanup addresses once in a while, as describe below. Now
2768 add-symbol-file /path/to/module/on/host that_address
2773 Tell gdb you really want to do it, and you're in business.
2776 If there's any doubt that you got the offset right, like breakpoints
2777 appear not to work, or they're appearing in the wrong place, you can
2778 check it by looking at the module structure. The init and cleanup
2779 fields should look like:
2782 init = 0x588066b0 <init_hostfs>, cleanup = 0x588066c0 <exit_hostfs>
2787 with no offsets on the symbol names. If the names are right, but they
2788 are offset, then the offset tells you how much you need to add to the
2789 address you gave to add-symbol-file.
2792 When you want to load in a new version of the module, you need to get
2793 gdb to forget about the old one. The only way I've found to do that
2794 is to tell gdb to forget about all symbols that it knows about:
2797 (UML gdb) symbol-file
2802 Then reload the symbols from the kernel binary:
2805 (UML gdb) symbol-file /path/to/kernel
2810 and repeat the process above. You'll also need to re-enable break-
2811 points. They were disabled when you dumped all the symbols because
2812 gdb couldn't figure out where they should go.
2816 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
2818 If you don't have the kernel running under gdb, you can attach gdb to
2819 it later by sending the tracing thread a SIGUSR1. The first line of
2820 the console output identifies its pid:
2821 tracing thread pid = 20093
2826 When you send it the signal:
2829 host% kill -USR1 20093
2834 you will get an xterm with gdb running in it.
2837 If you have the mconsole compiled into UML, then the mconsole client
2838 can be used to start gdb:
2841 (mconsole) (mconsole) config gdb=xterm
2846 will fire up an xterm with gdb running in it.
2850 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
2852 UML has support for attaching to an already running debugger rather
2853 than starting gdb itself. This is present in CVS as of 17 Apr 2001.
2854 I sent it to Alan for inclusion in the ac tree, and it will be in my
2858 This is useful when gdb is a subprocess of some UI, such as emacs or
2859 ddd. It can also be used to run debuggers other than gdb on UML.
2860 Below is an example of using strace as an alternate debugger.
2863 To do this, you need to get the pid of the debugger and pass it in
2867 If you are using gdb under some UI, then tell it to 'att 1', and
2868 you'll find yourself attached to UML.
2871 If you are using something other than gdb as your debugger, then
2872 you'll need to get it to do the equivalent of 'att 1' if it doesn't do
2876 An example of an alternate debugger is strace. You can strace the
2877 actual kernel as follows:
2879 +
\bo Run the following in a shell
2883 sh -c 'echo pid=$$; echo -n hit return; read x; exec strace -p 1 -o strace.out'
2887 +
\bo Run UML with 'debug' and 'gdb-pid=<pid>' with the pid printed out
2888 by the previous command
2890 +
\bo Hit return in the shell, and UML will start running, and strace
2891 output will start accumulating in the output file.
2893 Note that this is different from running
2896 host% strace ./linux
2901 That will strace only the main UML thread, the tracing thread, which
2902 doesn't do any of the actual kernel work. It just oversees the vir-
2903 tual machine. In contrast, using strace as described above will show
2904 you the low-level activity of the virtual machine.
2910 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
2912 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
2914 When booting up the kernel, fsck failed, and dropped me into a shell
2915 to fix things up. I ran fsck -y, which hung:
2953 Setting hostname uml [ OK ]
2954 Checking root filesystem
2955 /dev/fhd0 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.
2956 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780.
2958 /dev/fhd0: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
2959 (i.e., without -a or -p options)
2962 *** An error occurred during the file system check.
2963 *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
2964 *** when you leave the shell.
2965 Give root password for maintenance
2966 (or type Control-D for normal startup):
2968 [root@uml /root]# fsck -y /dev/fhd0
2970 Parallelizing fsck version 1.14 (9-Jan-1999)
2971 e2fsck 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
2972 /dev/fhd0 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
2973 Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
2974 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780. Ignore error? yes
2976 Inode 19780, i_blocks is 1548, should be 540. Fix? yes
2978 Pass 2: Checking directory structure
2979 Error reading block 49405 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read). Ignore error? yes
2981 Directory inode 11858, block 0, offset 0: directory corrupted
2984 Missing '.' in directory inode 11858.
2987 Missing '..' in directory inode 11858.
2994 The standard drill in this sort of situation is to fire up gdb on the
2995 signal thread, which, in this case, was pid 1935. In another window,
2996 I run gdb and attach pid 1935.
3001 ~/linux/2.3.26/um 1016: gdb linux
3002 GNU gdb 4.17.0.11 with Linux support
3003 Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3004 GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
3005 welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
3006 Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
3007 There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
3008 This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
3011 Attaching to program `/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux', Pid 1935
3012 0x100756d9 in __wait4 ()
3019 Let's see what's currently running:
3023 (gdb) p current_task.pid
3030 It's the idle thread, which means that fsck went to sleep for some
3031 reason and never woke up.
3034 Let's guess that the last process in the process list is fsck:
3038 (gdb) p current_task.prev_task.comm
3039 $13 = "fsck.ext2\000\000\000\000\000\000"
3045 It is, so let's see what it thinks it's up to:
3049 (gdb) p current_task.prev_task.thread
3050 $14 = {extern_pid = 1980, tracing = 0, want_tracing = 0, forking = 0,
3051 kernel_stack_page = 0, signal_stack = 1342627840, syscall = {id = 4, args = {
3052 3, 134973440, 1024, 0, 1024}, have_result = 0, result = 50590720},
3053 request = {op = 2, u = {exec = {ip = 1350467584, sp = 2952789424}, fork = {
3054 regs = {1350467584, 2952789424, 0 <repeats 15 times>}, sigstack = 0,
3055 pid = 0}, switch_to = 0x507e8000, thread = {proc = 0x507e8000,
3056 arg = 0xaffffdb0, flags = 0, new_pid = 0}, input_request = {
3057 op = 1350467584, fd = -1342177872, proc = 0, pid = 0}}}}
3063 The interesting things here are the fact that its .thread.syscall.id
3064 is __NR_write (see the big switch in arch/um/kernel/syscall_kern.c or
3065 the defines in include/asm-um/arch/unistd.h), and that it never
3066 returned. Also, its .request.op is OP_SWITCH (see
3067 arch/um/include/user_util.h). These mean that it went into a write,
3068 and, for some reason, called schedule().
3071 The fact that it never returned from write means that its stack should
3072 be fairly interesting. Its pid is 1980 (.thread.extern_pid). That
3073 process is being ptraced by the signal thread, so it must be detached
3074 before gdb can attach it:
3085 (gdb) call detach(1980)
3087 Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
3088 <function called from gdb>
3089 The program being debugged stopped while in a function called from GDB.
3090 When the function (detach) is done executing, GDB will silently
3091 stop (instead of continuing to evaluate the expression containing
3093 (gdb) call detach(1980)
3100 The first detach segfaults for some reason, and the second one
3104 Now I detach from the signal thread, attach to the fsck thread, and
3109 Detaching from program: /home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux Pid 1935
3111 Attaching to program `/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux', Pid 1980
3112 0x10070451 in __kill ()
3114 #0 0x10070451 in __kill ()
3115 #1 0x10068ccd in usr1_pid (pid=1980) at process.c:30
3116 #2 0x1006a03f in _switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000)
3117 at process_kern.c:156
3118 #3 0x1006a052 in switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000, last=0x50072000)
3119 at process_kern.c:161
3120 #4 0x10001d12 in schedule () at sched.c:777
3121 #5 0x1006a744 in __down (sem=0x507d241c) at semaphore.c:71
3122 #6 0x1006aa10 in __down_failed () at semaphore.c:157
3123 #7 0x1006c5d8 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006e940) at trap_user.c:174
3124 #8 0x1006c5ec in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3125 #9 <signal handler called>
3126 #10 0x10155404 in errno ()
3127 #11 0x1006c0aa in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:50
3128 #12 0x1006c5d8 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006eaf8) at trap_user.c:174
3129 #13 0x1006c5ec in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3130 #14 <signal handler called>
3132 #16 0x10016647 in sys_write (fd=3,
3133 buf=0x80b8800 <Address 0x80b8800 out of bounds>, count=1024)
3135 #17 0x1006d5b3 in execute_syscall (syscall=4, args=0x5006ef08)
3136 at syscall_kern.c:254
3137 #18 0x1006af87 in really_do_syscall (sig=12) at syscall_user.c:35
3138 #19 <signal handler called>
3139 #20 0x400dc8b0 in ?? ()
3145 The interesting things here are :
3147 +
\bo There are two segfaults on this stack (frames 9 and 14)
3149 +
\bo The first faulting address (frame 11) is 0x50000800
3151 (gdb) p (void *)1342179328
3152 $16 = (void *) 0x50000800
3158 The initial faulting address is interesting because it is on the idle
3159 thread's stack. I had been seeing the idle thread segfault for no
3160 apparent reason, and the cause looked like stack corruption. In hopes
3161 of catching the culprit in the act, I had turned off all protections
3162 to that stack while the idle thread wasn't running. This apparently
3166 However, the more immediate problem is that second segfault and I'm
3167 going to concentrate on that. First, I want to see where the fault
3168 happened, so I have to go look at the sigcontent struct in frame 8:
3173 #1 0x10068ccd in usr1_pid (pid=1980) at process.c:30
3174 30 kill(pid, SIGUSR1);
3176 #2 0x1006a03f in _switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000)
3177 at process_kern.c:156
3178 156 usr1_pid(getpid());
3180 #3 0x1006a052 in switch_to (prev=0x50072000, next=0x507e8000, last=0x50072000)
3181 at process_kern.c:161
3182 161 _switch_to(prev, next);
3184 #4 0x10001d12 in schedule () at sched.c:777
3185 777 switch_to(prev, next, prev);
3187 #5 0x1006a744 in __down (sem=0x507d241c) at semaphore.c:71
3190 #6 0x1006aa10 in __down_failed () at semaphore.c:157
3193 #7 0x1006c5d8 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006e940) at trap_user.c:174
3194 174 segv(sc->cr2, sc->err & 2);
3196 #8 0x1006c5ec in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3197 182 segv_handler(sc);
3199 Cannot access memory at address 0x0.
3204 That's not very useful, so I'll try a more manual method:
3207 (gdb) p *((struct sigcontext *) (&sig + 1))
3208 $19 = {gs = 0, __gsh = 0, fs = 0, __fsh = 0, es = 43, __esh = 0, ds = 43,
3209 __dsh = 0, edi = 1342179328, esi = 1350378548, ebp = 1342630440,
3210 esp = 1342630420, ebx = 1348150624, edx = 1280, ecx = 0, eax = 0,
3211 trapno = 14, err = 4, eip = 268480945, cs = 35, __csh = 0, eflags = 66118,
3212 esp_at_signal = 1342630420, ss = 43, __ssh = 0, fpstate = 0x0, oldmask = 0,
3217 The ip is in handle_mm_fault:
3220 (gdb) p (void *)268480945
3221 $20 = (void *) 0x1000b1b1
3223 handle_mm_fault + 57 in section .text
3229 Specifically, it's in pte_alloc:
3233 Line 124 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3234 starts at address 0x1000b1b1 <handle_mm_fault+57>
3235 and ends at 0x1000b1b7 <handle_mm_fault+63>.
3241 To find where in handle_mm_fault this is, I'll jump forward in the
3242 code until I see an address in that procedure:
3246 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1c0
3247 Line 126 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3248 starts at address 0x1000b1b7 <handle_mm_fault+63>
3249 and ends at 0x1000b1c3 <handle_mm_fault+75>.
3250 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1d0
3251 Line 131 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3252 starts at address 0x1000b1d0 <handle_mm_fault+88>
3253 and ends at 0x1000b1da <handle_mm_fault+98>.
3254 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1e0
3255 Line 61 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3256 starts at address 0x1000b1da <handle_mm_fault+98>
3257 and ends at 0x1000b1e1 <handle_mm_fault+105>.
3258 (gdb) i line *0x1000b1f0
3259 Line 134 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3260 starts at address 0x1000b1f0 <handle_mm_fault+120>
3261 and ends at 0x1000b200 <handle_mm_fault+136>.
3262 (gdb) i line *0x1000b200
3263 Line 135 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3264 starts at address 0x1000b200 <handle_mm_fault+136>
3265 and ends at 0x1000b208 <handle_mm_fault+144>.
3266 (gdb) i line *0x1000b210
3267 Line 139 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/pgalloc.h"
3268 starts at address 0x1000b210 <handle_mm_fault+152>
3269 and ends at 0x1000b219 <handle_mm_fault+161>.
3270 (gdb) i line *0x1000b220
3271 Line 1168 of "memory.c" starts at address 0x1000b21e <handle_mm_fault+166>
3272 and ends at 0x1000b222 <handle_mm_fault+170>.
3278 Something is apparently wrong with the page tables or vma_structs, so
3279 lets go back to frame 11 and have a look at them:
3283 #11 0x1006c0aa in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:50
3284 50 handle_mm_fault(current, vma, address, is_write);
3285 (gdb) call pgd_offset_proc(vma->vm_mm, address)
3286 $22 = (pgd_t *) 0x80a548c
3292 That's pretty bogus. Page tables aren't supposed to be in process
3293 text or data areas. Let's see what's in the vma:
3297 $23 = {vm_mm = 0x507d2434, vm_start = 0, vm_end = 134512640,
3298 vm_next = 0x80a4f8c, vm_page_prot = {pgprot = 0}, vm_flags = 31200,
3299 vm_avl_height = 2058, vm_avl_left = 0x80a8c94, vm_avl_right = 0x80d1000,
3300 vm_next_share = 0xaffffdb0, vm_pprev_share = 0xaffffe63,
3301 vm_ops = 0xaffffe7a, vm_pgoff = 2952789626, vm_file = 0xafffffec,
3302 vm_private_data = 0x62}
3304 $24 = {mmap = 0x507d2434, mmap_avl = 0x0, mmap_cache = 0x8048000,
3305 pgd = 0x80a4f8c, mm_users = {counter = 0}, mm_count = {counter = 134904288},
3306 map_count = 134909076, mmap_sem = {count = {counter = 135073792},
3307 sleepers = -1342177872, wait = {lock = <optimized out or zero length>,
3308 task_list = {next = 0xaffffe63, prev = 0xaffffe7a},
3309 __magic = -1342177670, __creator = -1342177300}, __magic = 98},
3310 page_table_lock = {}, context = 138, start_code = 0, end_code = 0,
3311 start_data = 0, end_data = 0, start_brk = 0, brk = 0, start_stack = 0,
3312 arg_start = 0, arg_end = 0, env_start = 0, env_end = 0, rss = 1350381536,
3313 total_vm = 0, locked_vm = 0, def_flags = 0, cpu_vm_mask = 0, swap_cnt = 0,
3314 swap_address = 0, segments = 0x0}
3320 This also pretty bogus. With all of the 0x80xxxxx and 0xaffffxxx
3321 addresses, this is looking like a stack was plonked down on top of
3322 these structures. Maybe it's a stack overflow from the next page:
3327 $25 = (struct vm_area_struct *) 0x507d2434
3333 That's towards the lower quarter of the page, so that would have to
3334 have been pretty heavy stack overflow:
3350 0x507d2434: 0x507d2434 0x00000000 0x08048000 0x080a4f8c
3351 0x507d2444: 0x00000000 0x080a79e0 0x080a8c94 0x080d1000
3352 0x507d2454: 0xaffffdb0 0xaffffe63 0xaffffe7a 0xaffffe7a
3353 0x507d2464: 0xafffffec 0x00000062 0x0000008a 0x00000000
3354 0x507d2474: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3355 0x507d2484: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3356 0x507d2494: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x507d2fe0 0x00000000
3357 0x507d24a4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3358 0x507d24b4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3359 0x507d24c4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3360 0x507d24d4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3361 0x507d24e4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3362 0x507d24f4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3363 0x507d2504: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3364 0x507d2514: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3365 0x507d2524: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3366 0x507d2534: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x507d25dc 0x00000000
3367 0x507d2544: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3368 0x507d2554: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3369 0x507d2564: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3370 0x507d2574: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3371 0x507d2584: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3372 0x507d2594: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3373 0x507d25a4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3374 0x507d25b4: 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000
3380 It's not stack overflow. The only "stack-like" piece of this data is
3381 the vma_struct itself.
3384 At this point, I don't see any avenues to pursue, so I just have to
3385 admit that I have no idea what's going on. What I will do, though, is
3386 stick a trap on the segfault handler which will stop if it sees any
3387 writes to the idle thread's stack. That was the thing that happened
3388 first, and it may be that if I can catch it immediately, what's going
3389 on will be somewhat clearer.
3392 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
3394 After setting a trap in the SEGV handler for accesses to the signal
3395 thread's stack, I reran the kernel.
3398 fsck hung again, this time by hitting the trap:
3415 Setting hostname uml [ OK ]
3416 Checking root filesystem
3417 /dev/fhd0 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
3418 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780.
3420 /dev/fhd0: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
3421 (i.e., without -a or -p options)
3424 *** An error occurred during the file system check.
3425 *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
3426 *** when you leave the shell.
3427 Give root password for maintenance
3428 (or type Control-D for normal startup):
3430 [root@uml /root]# fsck -y /dev/fhd0
3432 Parallelizing fsck version 1.14 (9-Jan-1999)
3433 e2fsck 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
3434 /dev/fhd0 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
3435 Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
3436 Error reading block 86894 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read) while reading indirect blocks of inode 19780. Ignore error? yes
3438 Pass 2: Checking directory structure
3439 Error reading block 49405 (Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read). Ignore error? yes
3441 Directory inode 11858, block 0, offset 0: directory corrupted
3444 Missing '.' in directory inode 11858.
3447 Missing '..' in directory inode 11858.
3450 Untested (4127) [100fe44c]: trap_kern.c line 31
3456 I need to get the signal thread to detach from pid 4127 so that I can
3457 attach to it with gdb. This is done by sending it a SIGUSR1, which is
3458 caught by the signal thread, which detaches the process:
3467 Now I can run gdb on it:
3481 ~/linux/2.3.26/um 1034: gdb linux
3482 GNU gdb 4.17.0.11 with Linux support
3483 Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3484 GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
3485 welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
3486 Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
3487 There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details.
3488 This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
3490 Attaching to program `/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/linux', Pid 4127
3491 0x10075891 in __libc_nanosleep ()
3497 The backtrace shows that it was in a write and that the fault address
3498 (address in frame 3) is 0x50000800, which is right in the middle of
3499 the signal thread's stack page:
3503 #0 0x10075891 in __libc_nanosleep ()
3504 #1 0x1007584d in __sleep (seconds=1000000)
3505 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:78
3506 #2 0x1006ce9a in stop () at user_util.c:191
3507 #3 0x1006bf88 in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:31
3508 #4 0x1006c628 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006eaf8) at trap_user.c:174
3509 #5 0x1006c63c in kern_segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:182
3510 #6 <signal handler called>
3512 #8 0x10016647 in sys_write (fd=3, buf=0x80b8800 "R.", count=1024)
3514 #9 0x1006d603 in execute_syscall (syscall=4, args=0x5006ef08)
3515 at syscall_kern.c:254
3516 #10 0x1006af87 in really_do_syscall (sig=12) at syscall_user.c:35
3517 #11 <signal handler called>
3518 #12 0x400dc8b0 in ?? ()
3519 #13 <signal handler called>
3520 #14 0x400dc8b0 in ?? ()
3521 #15 0x80545fd in ?? ()
3522 #16 0x804daae in ?? ()
3523 #17 0x8054334 in ?? ()
3524 #18 0x804d23e in ?? ()
3525 #19 0x8049632 in ?? ()
3526 #20 0x80491d2 in ?? ()
3527 #21 0x80596b5 in ?? ()
3528 (gdb) p (void *)1342179328
3529 $3 = (void *) 0x50000800
3535 Going up the stack to the segv_handler frame and looking at where in
3536 the code the access happened shows that it happened near line 110 of
3548 #1 0x1007584d in __sleep (seconds=1000000)
3549 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:78
3550 ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sleep.c:78: No such file or directory.
3552 #2 0x1006ce9a in stop () at user_util.c:191
3553 191 while(1) sleep(1000000);
3555 #3 0x1006bf88 in segv (address=1342179328, is_write=2) at trap_kern.c:31
3558 #4 0x1006c628 in segv_handler (sc=0x5006eaf8) at trap_user.c:174
3559 174 segv(sc->cr2, sc->err & 2);
3561 $1 = {gs = 0, __gsh = 0, fs = 0, __fsh = 0, es = 43, __esh = 0, ds = 43,
3562 __dsh = 0, edi = 1342179328, esi = 134973440, ebp = 1342631484,
3563 esp = 1342630864, ebx = 256, edx = 0, ecx = 256, eax = 1024, trapno = 14,
3564 err = 6, eip = 268550834, cs = 35, __csh = 0, eflags = 66070,
3565 esp_at_signal = 1342630864, ss = 43, __ssh = 0, fpstate = 0x0, oldmask = 0,
3567 (gdb) p (void *)268550834
3568 $2 = (void *) 0x1001c2b2
3570 block_write + 1090 in section .text
3572 Line 209 of "/home/dike/linux/2.3.26/um/include/asm/arch/string.h"
3573 starts at address 0x1001c2a1 <block_write+1073>
3574 and ends at 0x1001c2bf <block_write+1103>.
3575 (gdb) i line *0x1001c2c0
3576 Line 110 of "block_dev.c" starts at address 0x1001c2bf <block_write+1103>
3577 and ends at 0x1001c2e3 <block_write+1139>.
3583 Looking at the source shows that the fault happened during a call to
3584 copy_to_user to copy the data into the kernel:
3588 108 copy_from_user(p,buf,chars);
3596 p is the pointer which must contain 0x50000800, since buf contains
3597 0x80b8800 (frame 8 above). It is defined as:
3600 p = offset + bh->b_data;
3606 I need to figure out what bh is, and it just so happens that bh is
3607 passed as an argument to mark_buffer_uptodate and mark_buffer_dirty a
3608 few lines later, so I do a little disassembly:
3613 (gdb) disas 0x1001c2bf 0x1001c2e0
3614 Dump of assembler code from 0x1001c2bf to 0x1001c2d0:
3615 0x1001c2bf <block_write+1103>: addl %eax,0xc(%ebp)
3616 0x1001c2c2 <block_write+1106>: movl 0xfffffdd4(%ebp),%edx
3617 0x1001c2c8 <block_write+1112>: btsl $0x0,0x18(%edx)
3618 0x1001c2cd <block_write+1117>: btsl $0x1,0x18(%edx)
3619 0x1001c2d2 <block_write+1122>: sbbl %ecx,%ecx
3620 0x1001c2d4 <block_write+1124>: testl %ecx,%ecx
3621 0x1001c2d6 <block_write+1126>: jne 0x1001c2e3 <block_write+1139>
3622 0x1001c2d8 <block_write+1128>: pushl $0x0
3623 0x1001c2da <block_write+1130>: pushl %edx
3624 0x1001c2db <block_write+1131>: call 0x1001819c <__mark_buffer_dirty>
3625 End of assembler dump.
3631 At that point, bh is in %edx (address 0x1001c2da), which is calculated
3632 at 0x1001c2c2 as %ebp + 0xfffffdd4, so I figure exactly what that is,
3633 taking %ebp from the sigcontext_struct above:
3636 (gdb) p (void *)1342631484
3637 $5 = (void *) 0x5006ee3c
3638 (gdb) p 0x5006ee3c+0xfffffdd4
3641 $7 = (void *) 0x5006ec10
3642 (gdb) p *((void **)$7)
3643 $8 = (void *) 0x50100200
3649 Now, I look at the structure to see what's in it, and particularly,
3650 what its b_data field contains:
3653 (gdb) p *((struct buffer_head *)0x50100200)
3654 $13 = {b_next = 0x50289380, b_blocknr = 49405, b_size = 1024, b_list = 0,
3655 b_dev = 15872, b_count = {counter = 1}, b_rdev = 15872, b_state = 24,
3656 b_flushtime = 0, b_next_free = 0x501001a0, b_prev_free = 0x50100260,
3657 b_this_page = 0x501001a0, b_reqnext = 0x0, b_pprev = 0x507fcf58,
3658 b_data = 0x50000800 "", b_page = 0x50004000,
3659 b_end_io = 0x10017f60 <end_buffer_io_sync>, b_dev_id = 0x0,
3660 b_rsector = 98810, b_wait = {lock = <optimized out or zero length>,
3661 task_list = {next = 0x50100248, prev = 0x50100248}, __magic = 1343226448,
3662 __creator = 0}, b_kiobuf = 0x0}
3668 The b_data field is indeed 0x50000800, so the question becomes how
3669 that happened. The rest of the structure looks fine, so this probably
3670 is not a case of data corruption. It happened on purpose somehow.
3673 The b_page field is a pointer to the page_struct representing the
3674 0x50000000 page. Looking at it shows the kernel's idea of the state
3680 $17 = {list = {next = 0x50004a5c, prev = 0x100c5174}, mapping = 0x0,
3681 index = 0, next_hash = 0x0, count = {counter = 1}, flags = 132, lru = {
3682 next = 0x50008460, prev = 0x50019350}, wait = {
3683 lock = <optimized out or zero length>, task_list = {next = 0x50004024,
3684 prev = 0x50004024}, __magic = 1342193708, __creator = 0},
3685 pprev_hash = 0x0, buffers = 0x501002c0, virtual = 1342177280,
3692 Some sanity-checking: the virtual field shows the "virtual" address of
3693 this page, which in this kernel is the same as its "physical" address,
3694 and the page_struct itself should be mem_map[0], since it represents
3695 the first page of memory:
3699 (gdb) p (void *)1342177280
3700 $18 = (void *) 0x50000000
3702 $19 = (mem_map_t *) 0x50004000
3708 These check out fine.
3711 Now to check out the page_struct itself. In particular, the flags
3712 field shows whether the page is considered free or not:
3722 The "reserved" bit is the high bit, which is definitely not set, so
3723 the kernel considers the signal stack page to be free and available to
3727 At this point, I jump to conclusions and start looking at my early
3728 boot code, because that's where that page is supposed to be reserved.
3731 In my setup_arch procedure, I have the following code which looks just
3736 bootmap_size = init_bootmem(start_pfn, end_pfn - start_pfn);
3737 free_bootmem(__pa(low_physmem) + bootmap_size, high_physmem - low_physmem);
3743 Two stack pages have already been allocated, and low_physmem points to
3744 the third page, which is the beginning of free memory.
3745 The init_bootmem call declares the entire memory to the boot memory
3746 manager, which marks it all reserved. The free_bootmem call frees up
3747 all of it, except for the first two pages. This looks correct to me.
3750 So, I decide to see init_bootmem run and make sure that it is marking
3751 those first two pages as reserved. I never get that far.
3754 Stepping into init_bootmem, and looking at bootmem_map before looking
3755 at what it contains shows the following:
3760 $3 = (void *) 0x50000000
3766 Aha! The light dawns. That first page is doing double duty as a
3767 stack and as the boot memory map. The last thing that the boot memory
3768 manager does is to free the pages used by its memory map, so this page
3769 is getting freed even its marked as reserved.
3772 The fix was to initialize the boot memory manager before allocating
3773 those two stack pages, and then allocate them through the boot memory
3774 manager. After doing this, and fixing a couple of subsequent buglets,
3775 the stack corruption problem disappeared.
3781 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
3786 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
3788 As of test11, it is necessary to have "ARCH=um" in the environment or
3789 on the make command line for all steps in building UML, including
3790 clean, distclean, or mrproper, config, menuconfig, or xconfig, dep,
3791 and linux. If you forget for any of them, the i386 build seems to
3792 contaminate the UML build. If this happens, start from scratch with
3796 make mrproper ARCH=um
3801 and repeat the build process with ARCH=um on all the steps.
3804 See ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' for more details.
3807 Another cause of strange compilation errors is building UML in
3808 /usr/src/linux. If you do this, the first thing you need to do is
3809 clean up the mess you made. The /usr/src/linux/asm link will now
3810 point to /usr/src/linux/asm-um. Make it point back to
3811 /usr/src/linux/asm-i386. Then, move your UML pool someplace else and
3812 build it there. Also see below, where a more specific set of symptoms
3817 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-
3820 I saw this on reiserfs 3.5.21 and it seems to be fixed in 3.5.27.
3828 are diagnostic of this problem. This is a reiserfs bug which causes a
3829 thread to occasionally read stale data from a mmapped page shared with
3830 another thread. The fix is to upgrade the filesystem or to have /tmp
3831 be an ext2 filesystem.
3835 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
3836 '
\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'
3838 This happens when you build in /usr/src/linux. The UML build makes
3839 the include/asm link point to include/asm-um. /usr/include/asm points
3840 to /usr/src/linux/include/asm, so when that link gets moved, files
3841 which need to include the asm-i386 versions of headers get the
3842 incompatible asm-um versions. The fix is to move the include/asm link
3843 back to include/asm-i386 and to do UML builds someplace else.
3847 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
3849 This seems to be a similar situation with the ReiserFS problem above.
3850 Some versions of NFS seems not to handle mmap correctly, which UML
3851 depends on. The workaround is have /tmp be a non-NFS directory.
3854 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
3856 If you build UML with gprof support and, early in the boot, it does
3860 kernel BUG at page_alloc.c:100!
3865 you have a buggy gcc. You can work around the problem by removing
3866 UM_FASTCALL from CFLAGS in arch/um/Makefile-i386. This will open up
3867 another bug, but that one is fairly hard to reproduce.
3871 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
3873 The exact boot error depends on the distribution that you're booting,
3874 but Debian produces this:
3877 /etc/rc2.d/S10sysklogd: line 49: 93 Terminated
3878 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /sbin/syslogd -- $SYSLOGD
3883 This is a syslogd bug. There's a race between a parent process
3884 installing a signal handler and its child sending the signal. See
3885 this uml-devel post <http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/Source-
3886 Forge/709/0/6612801> for the details.
3890 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
3892 There are a couple of problems which were
3893 <http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/SourceForge/597/0/> name="pointed
3894 out"> by Tim Robinson <timro at trkr dot net>
3896 +
\bo It doesn't work on hosts running 2.4.7 (or thereabouts) or earlier.
3897 The fix is to upgrade to something more recent and then read the
3903 File descriptor in bad state
3907 when you bring up the device inside UML, you have a header mismatch
3908 between the original kernel and the upgraded one. Make /usr/src/linux
3909 point at the new headers. This will only be a problem if you build
3914 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
3917 If you can connect to the host, and the host can connect to UML, but
3918 you cannot connect to any other machines, then you may need to enable
3919 IP Masquerading on the host. Usually this is only experienced when
3920 using private IP addresses (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) for host/UML
3921 networking, rather than the public address space that your host is
3922 connected to. UML does not enable IP Masquerading, so you will need
3923 to create a static rule to enable it:
3927 iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
3932 Replace eth0 with the interface that you use to talk to the rest of
3936 Documentation on IP Masquerading, and SNAT, can be found at
3937 www.netfilter.org <http://www.netfilter.org> .
3940 If you can reach the local net, but not the outside Internet, then
3941 that is usually a routing problem. The UML needs a default route:
3945 route add default gw gateway IP
3950 The gateway IP can be any machine on the local net that knows how to
3951 reach the outside world. Usually, this is the host or the local net-
3955 Occasionally, we hear from someone who can reach some machines, but
3956 not others on the same net, or who can reach some ports on other
3957 machines, but not others. These are usually caused by strange
3958 firewalling somewhere between the UML and the other box. You track
3959 this down by running tcpdump on every interface the packets travel
3960 over and see where they disappear. When you find a machine that takes
3961 the packets in, but does not send them onward, that's the culprit.
3965 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
3967 Thanks to Birgit Wahlich for telling me about this strange one. It
3968 turns out that there's a limit of six environment variables on the
3969 kernel command line. When that limit is reached or exceeded, argument
3970 processing stops, which means that the 'root=' argument that UML
3971 usually adds is not seen. So, the filesystem has no idea what the
3972 root device is, so it panics.
3975 The fix is to put less stuff on the command line. Glomming all your
3976 setup variables into one is probably the best way to go.
3980 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
3982 On some older systems, /usr/include/asm/ptrace.h and
3983 /usr/include/sys/ucontext.h define the same names. So, when they're
3984 included together, the defines from one completely mess up the parsing
3985 of the other, producing errors like:
3986 /usr/include/sys/ucontext.h:47: parse error before
3992 plus a pile of warnings.
3995 This is a libc botch, which has since been fixed, and I don't see any
3996 way around it besides upgrading.
4000 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
4002 On i386 kernels, there are two ways of running the loop that is used
4003 to calculate the BogoMips rating, using the TSC if it's there or using
4004 a one-instruction loop. The TSC produces twice the BogoMips as the
4005 loop. UML uses the loop, since it has nothing resembling a TSC, and
4006 will get almost exactly the same BogoMips as a host using the loop.
4007 However, on a host with a TSC, its BogoMips will be double the loop
4008 BogoMips, and therefore double the UML BogoMips.
4012 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
4014 If the host is configured with the 2G/2G address space split, that's
4015 why. See ``UML on 2G/2G hosts'' for the details on getting UML to
4020 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
4022 If you're running an up to date kernel with an old release of
4023 uml_utilities, the port-helper program will not work properly, so
4024 xterms will exit straight after they appear. The solution is to
4025 upgrade to the latest release of uml_utilities. Usually this problem
4026 occurs when you have installed a packaged release of UML then compiled
4027 your own development kernel without upgrading the uml_utilities from
4028 the source distribution.
4032 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
4034 If you're seeing truly strange behavior, such as hangs or panics that
4035 happen in random places, or you try running the debugger to see what's
4036 happening and it acts strangely, then it could be a problem in the
4037 host kernel. If you're not running a stock Linus or -ac kernel, then
4038 try that. An early version of the preemption patch and a 2.4.10 SuSE
4039 kernel have caused very strange problems in UML.
4042 Otherwise, let me know about it. Send a message to one of the UML
4043 mailing lists - either the developer list - user-mode-linux-devel at
4044 lists dot sourceforge dot net (subscription info) or the user list -
4045 user-mode-linux-user at lists dot sourceforge do net (subscription
4046 info), whichever you prefer. Don't assume that everyone knows about
4047 it and that a fix is imminent.
4050 If you want to be super-helpful, read ``Diagnosing Problems'' and
4051 follow the instructions contained therein.
4052 1
\b14
\b4.
\b. D
\bDi
\bia
\bag
\bgn
\bno
\bos
\bsi
\bin
\bng
\bg P
\bPr
\bro
\bob
\bbl
\ble
\bem
\bms
\bs
4055 If you get UML to crash, hang, or otherwise misbehave, you should
4056 report this on one of the project mailing lists, either the developer
4057 list - user-mode-linux-devel at lists dot sourceforge dot net
4058 (subscription info) or the user list - user-mode-linux-user at lists
4059 dot sourceforge dot net (subscription info). When you do, it is
4060 likely that I will want more information. So, it would be helpful to
4061 read the stuff below, do whatever is applicable in your case, and
4062 report the results to the list.
4065 For any diagnosis, you're going to need to build a debugging kernel.
4066 The binaries from this site aren't debuggable. If you haven't done
4067 this before, read about ``Compiling the kernel and modules'' and
4068 ``Kernel debugging'' UML first.
4071 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
4073 The most common case is for a normal thread to panic. To debug this,
4074 you will need to run it under the debugger (add 'debug' to the command
4075 line). An xterm will start up with gdb running inside it. Continue
4076 it when it stops in start_kernel and make it crash. Now ^C gdb and
4079 If the panic was a "Kernel mode fault", then there will be a segv
4080 frame on the stack and I'm going to want some more information. The
4081 stack might look something like this:
4085 #0 0x1009bf76 in __sigprocmask (how=1, set=0x5f347940, oset=0x0)
4086 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/sigprocmask.c:49
4087 #1 0x10091411 in change_sig (signal=10, on=1) at process.c:218
4088 #2 0x10094785 in timer_handler (sig=26) at time_kern.c:32
4089 #3 0x1009bf38 in __restore ()
4090 at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:125
4091 #4 0x1009534c in segv (address=8, ip=268849158, is_write=2, is_user=0)
4093 #5 0x10095c04 in segv_handler (sig=11) at trap_user.c:285
4094 #6 0x1009bf38 in __restore ()
4099 I'm going to want to see the symbol and line information for the value
4100 of ip in the segv frame. In this case, you would do the following:
4103 (UML gdb) i sym 268849158
4111 (UML gdb) i line *268849158
4116 The reason for this is the __restore frame right above the segv_han-
4117 dler frame is hiding the frame that actually segfaulted. So, I have
4118 to get that information from the faulting ip.
4121 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
4123 The less common and more painful case is when the tracing thread
4124 panics. In this case, the kernel debugger will be useless because it
4125 needs a healthy tracing thread in order to work. The first thing to
4126 do is get a backtrace from the tracing thread. This is done by
4127 figuring out what its pid is, firing up gdb, and attaching it to that
4128 pid. You can figure out the tracing thread pid by looking at the
4129 first line of the console output, which will look like this:
4132 tracing thread pid = 15851
4137 or by running ps on the host and finding the line that looks like
4141 jdike 15851 4.5 0.4 132568 1104 pts/0 S 21:34 0:05 ./linux [(tracing thread)]
4146 If the panic was 'segfault in signals', then follow the instructions
4147 above for collecting information about the location of the seg fault.
4150 If the tracing thread flaked out all by itself, then send that
4151 backtrace in and wait for our crack debugging team to fix the problem.
4154 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
4156 However, there are cases where the misbehavior of another thread
4157 caused the problem. The most common panic of this type is:
4160 wait_for_stop failed to wait for <pid> to stop with <signal number>
4165 In this case, you'll need to get a backtrace from the process men-
4166 tioned in the panic, which is complicated by the fact that the kernel
4167 debugger is defunct and without some fancy footwork, another gdb can't
4168 attach to it. So, this is how the fancy footwork goes:
4173 host% kill -STOP pid
4178 Run gdb on the tracing thread as described in case 2 and do:
4181 (host gdb) call detach(pid)
4184 If you get a segfault, do it again. It always works the second time.
4186 Detach from the tracing thread and attach to that other thread:
4196 (host gdb) attach pid
4201 If gdb hangs when attaching to that process, go back to a shell and
4211 And then get the backtrace:
4214 (host gdb) backtrace
4220 1
\b14
\b4.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be 4
\b4 :
\b: H
\bHa
\ban
\bng
\bgs
\bs
4222 Hangs seem to be fairly rare, but they sometimes happen. When a hang
4223 happens, we need a backtrace from the offending process. Run the
4224 kernel debugger as described in case 1 and get a backtrace. If the
4225 current process is not the idle thread, then send in the backtrace.
4226 You can tell that it's the idle thread if the stack looks like this:
4229 #0 0x100b1401 in __libc_nanosleep ()
4230 #1 0x100a2885 in idle_sleep (secs=10) at time.c:122
4231 #2 0x100a546f in do_idle () at process_kern.c:445
4232 #3 0x100a5508 in cpu_idle () at process_kern.c:471
4233 #4 0x100ec18f in start_kernel () at init/main.c:592
4234 #5 0x100a3e10 in start_kernel_proc (unused=0x0) at um_arch.c:71
4235 #6 0x100a383f in signal_tramp (arg=0x100a3dd8) at trap_user.c:50
4240 If this is the case, then some other process is at fault, and went to
4241 sleep when it shouldn't have. Run ps on the host and figure out which
4242 process should not have gone to sleep and stayed asleep. Then attach
4243 to it with gdb and get a backtrace as described in case 3.
4250 1
\b15
\b5.
\b. T
\bTh
\bha
\ban
\bnk
\bks
\bs
4253 A number of people have helped this project in various ways, and this
4254 page gives recognition where recognition is due.
4257 If you're listed here and you would prefer a real link on your name,
4258 or no link at all, instead of the despammed email address pseudo-link,
4262 If you're not listed here and you think maybe you should be, please
4263 let me know that as well. I try to get everyone, but sometimes my
4264 bookkeeping lapses and I forget about contributions.
4267 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
4269 Rusty Russell <rusty at linuxcare.com.au> -
4271 +
\bo wrote the HOWTO <http://user-mode-
4272 linux.sourceforge.net/UserModeLinux-HOWTO.html>
4274 +
\bo prodded me into making this project official and putting it on
4277 +
\bo came up with the way cool UML logo <http://user-mode-
4278 linux.sourceforge.net/uml-small.png>
4280 +
\bo redid the config process
4283 Peter Moulder <reiter at netspace.net.au> - Fixed my config and build
4284 processes, and added some useful code to the block driver
4287 Bill Stearns <wstearns at pobox.com> -
4291 +
\bo lots of bug reports
4293 +
\bo lots of testing
4295 +
\bo dedicated a box (uml.ists.dartmouth.edu) to support UML development
4297 +
\bo wrote the mkrootfs script, which allows bootable filesystems of
4298 RPM-based distributions to be cranked out
4300 +
\bo cranked out a large number of filesystems with said script
4303 Jim Leu <jleu at mindspring.com> - Wrote the virtual ethernet driver
4304 and associated usermode tools
4306 Lars Brinkhoff <http://lars.nocrew.org/> - Contributed the ptrace
4307 proxy from his own project <http://a386.nocrew.org/> to allow easier
4311 Andrea Arcangeli <andrea at suse.de> - Redid some of the early boot
4312 code so that it would work on machines with Large File Support
4315 Chris Emerson <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~cemerson/> - Did
4316 the first UML port to Linux/ppc
4319 Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org> - Wrote the multicast
4320 transport for the network driver
4323 Jorgen Cederlof - Added special file support to hostfs
4326 Greg Lonnon <glonnon at ridgerun dot com> - Changed the ubd driver
4327 to allow it to layer a COW file on a shared read-only filesystem and
4328 wrote the iomem emulation support
4331 Henrik Nordstrom <http://hem.passagen.se/hno/> - Provided a variety
4332 of patches, fixes, and clues
4335 Lennert Buytenhek - Contributed various patches, a rewrite of the
4336 network driver, the first implementation of the mconsole driver, and
4337 did the bulk of the work needed to get SMP working again.
4340 Yon Uriarte - Fixed the TUN/TAP network backend while I slept.
4343 Adam Heath - Made a bunch of nice cleanups to the initialization code,
4344 plus various other small patches.
4347 Matt Zimmerman - Matt volunteered to be the UML Debian maintainer and
4348 is doing a real nice job of it. He also noticed and fixed a number of
4349 actually and potentially exploitable security holes in uml_net. Plus
4350 the occasional patch. I like patches.
4353 James McMechan - James seems to have taken over maintenance of the ubd
4354 driver and is doing a nice job of it.
4357 Chandan Kudige - wrote the umlgdb script which automates the reloading
4361 Steve Schmidtke - wrote the UML slirp transport and hostaudio drivers,
4362 enabling UML processes to access audio devices on the host. He also
4363 submitted patches for the slip transport and lots of other things.
4366 David Coulson <http://davidcoulson.net> -
4368 +
\bo Set up the usermodelinux.org <http://usermodelinux.org> site,
4369 which is a great way of keeping the UML user community on top of
4372 +
\bo Site documentation and updates
4374 +
\bo Nifty little UML management daemon UMLd
4375 <http://uml.openconsultancy.com/umld/>
4377 +
\bo Lots of testing and bug reports
4382 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
4386 +
\bo Yuri Pudgorodsky
4396 +
\bo John H. Hartman
4398 +
\bo Anders Karlsson
4400 +
\bo Daniel Phillips
4404 +
\bo Rainer Burgstaller
4406 +
\bo James Stevenson
4410 +
\bo Cliff Jefferies
4414 +
\bo Lennert Buytenhek
4418 +
\bo Frank Klingenhoefer
4420 +
\bo Livio Baldini Soares
4430 +
\bo Sverker Nilsson
4438 +
\bo Lorenzo Allegrucci
4440 +
\bo Muli Ben-Yehuda
4442 +
\bo David Mansfield
4461 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
4471 +
\bo Brian J. Murrell
4483 +
\bo Sverker Nilsson
4487 +
\bo v.naga srinivas
4499 +
\bo Vincent Guffens
4503 +
\bo Patrick Caulfield
4507 +
\bo Catalin Marinas
4516 +
\bo Lorenzo Colitti
4518 +
\bo Gwendal Grignou
4526 1
\b15
\b5.
\b.4
\b4.
\b. C
\bCa
\bas
\bse
\be S
\bSt
\btu
\bud
\bdi
\bie
\bes
\bs
4533 +
\bo Michael Richardson
4537 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
4540 Bill Carr <Bill.Carr at compaq.com> made the Red Hat mkrootfs script
4543 Michael Jennings <mikejen at hevanet.com> sent in some material which
4544 is now gracing the top of the index page <http://user-mode-
4545 linux.sourceforge.net/> of this site.
4547 SGI <http://www.sgi.com> (and more specifically Ralf Baechle <ralf at
4548 uni-koblenz.de> ) gave me an account on oss.sgi.com
4549 <http://www.oss.sgi.com> . The bandwidth there made it possible to
4550 produce most of the filesystems available on the project download
4553 Laurent Bonnaud <Laurent.Bonnaud at inpg.fr> took the old grotty
4554 Debian filesystem that I've been distributing and updated it to 2.2.
4555 It is now available by itself here.
4557 Rik van Riel gave me some ftp space on ftp.nl.linux.org so I can make
4558 releases even when Sourceforge is broken.
4560 Rodrigo de Castro looked at my broken pte code and told me what was
4561 wrong with it, letting me fix a long-standing (several weeks) and
4562 serious set of bugs.
4564 Chris Reahard built a specialized root filesystem for running a DNS
4565 server jailed inside UML. It's available from the download
4566 <http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/dl-sf.html> page in the Jail
4567 Filesystems section.