Debugging kernel drivers

UnixWare 7 and SCO OpenServer include a number of tools to help you debug drivers. These include:

• Kernel debuggers that can set breakpoints, display kernel stack traces and kernel structures, and modify the contents of memory, I/O, and registers. Versions of the scodb debugger are provided for both UnixWare 7 and SCO OpenServer, although there are minor differences in their functionality. The kdb debugger is supported only on UnixWare 7. Both kdb and scodb can be linked into the UnixWare 7 kernel at the same time, although only one is the current debugger. Use the newdebug command to toggle between kdb and scodb as the current debugger.

  For more information, see:

  • ``Using crash and the kernel debuggers''

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

  • kdb(1M)

  • ``Using SCODB on UnixWare 7''

  • ``Using SCODB on SCO OpenServer''

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

• Using the crash(1M) or crash(ADM) command.

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

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

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