drgn/README.rst
Omar Sandoval 6a13d74c0c libdrgn: build with bundled elfutils
Now that we have the bundled version of elfutils, build it from libdrgn
and link to it. We can also get rid of the elfutils version checks from
the libdrgn code.
2019-09-19 11:07:12 -07:00

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3.6 KiB
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drgn
====
.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/osandov/drgn.svg?branch=master
:target: https://travis-ci.org/osandov/drgn
:alt: Build Status
.. image:: https://readthedocs.org/projects/drgn/badge/?version=latest
:target: https://drgn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/?badge=latest
:alt: Documentation Status
.. start-introduction
drgn (pronounced "dragon") is a debugger-as-a-library. In contrast to existing
debuggers like `GDB <https://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/>`_ which focus on
breakpoint-based debugging, drgn excels in live introspection. drgn exposes the
types and variables in a program for easy, expressive scripting in Python. For
example, you can debug the Linux kernel:
.. code-block:: pycon
>>> from drgn.helpers.linux import list_for_each_entry
>>> for mod in list_for_each_entry('struct module',
... prog['modules'].address_of_(),
... 'list'):
... if mod.refcnt.counter > 10:
... print(mod.name)
...
(char [56])"snd"
(char [56])"evdev"
(char [56])"i915"
drgn was developed for debugging the Linux kernel (as an alternative to the
`crash <http://people.redhat.com/anderson/>`_ utility), but it can also debug
userspace programs written in C. C++ support is planned.
.. end-introduction
Documentation can be found at `drgn.readthedocs.io
<https://drgn.readthedocs.io>`_.
Installation
------------
.. start-install-dependencies
Install dependencies:
Arch Linux::
$ sudo pacman -S --needed autoconf automake bison bzip2 flex gawk gcc libtool make pkgconf python python-setuptools xz zlib
Debian/Ubuntu::
$ sudo apt-get install autoconf automake bison flex gawk gcc libbz2-dev liblzma-dev libtool make pkgconf python3 python3-dev python3-setuptools zlib1g-dev
Note that Debian Stretch, Ubuntu Trusty, and Ubuntu Xenial (and older) ship
Python versions which are too old. Python 3.6 or newer must be installed
manually.
Fedora::
$ sudo dnf install autoconf automake bison bzip2-devel flex gawk gcc libtool make pkgconf python3 python3-devel python3-setuptools xz-devel zlib-devel
Optionally, install:
* `libkdumpfile <https://github.com/ptesarik/libkdumpfile>`_ if you want
support for kdump-compressed kernel core dumps
.. end-install-dependencies
Then, run:
.. code-block:: console
$ git clone https://github.com/osandov/drgn.git
$ cd drgn
$ python3 setup.py build
$ sudo python3 setup.py install
See the `installation documentation
<https://drgn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html>`_ for more details.
Quick Start
-----------
.. start-quick-start
drgn debugs the running kernel by default; run ``sudo drgn``. To debug a
running program, run ``sudo drgn -p $PID``. To debug a core dump (either a
kernel vmcore or a userspace core dump), run ``drgn -c $PATH``. The program
must have debugging symbols available.
Then, you can access variables in the program with ``prog['name']``, access
structure members with ``.``, use various predefined helpers, and more:
.. code-block:: pycon
$ sudo drgn
>>> prog['init_task'].comm
(char [16])"swapper/0"
>>> d_path(fget(find_task(prog, 1), 0).f_path.address_of_())
b'/dev/null'
>>> max(task.stime for task in for_each_task(prog))
(u64)4192109975952
>>> sum(disk.gendisk.part0.nr_sects for disk in for_each_disk(prog))
(sector_t)999705952
.. end-quick-start
See the `user guide <https://drgn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide.html>`_
for more information.
License
-------
.. start-license
Copyright 2018-2019 Omar Sandoval
drgn is licensed under the `GPLv3
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html>`_ or later.
.. end-license