Core Dump Subsystem Overview and Concepts
Overview
The Core Dump Subsystem (CDS) provides a mechanism to capture the state
of the system when an application or the system fails. It also has the ability
to collect information in the event of a crash in the Symbian platform kernel. As
part of the software application development and testing process, it is
important to capture failure information in order to analyse the failure. The
Core Dump Subsystem collects such failure information from the run-mode debug
subsystem. This information is later analysed to view failures in the correct
context. Information analysed can include: why the failure occurred, source
code location, local variable values, and so on.
Concepts
The section briefly describes the key concepts related to the tool:
- Core dump
-
The failure information that is captured by the Core Dump Subsystem
during an application failure or a system failure is referred to as the
core dump. Using the core dump, the debugging tools can
find out why the failure occurred.
- Observed set
-
A group of threads and processes that are selected by the user to
be observed for failure is referred to as Observed set. A process,
and the threads within, can only belong to the Observed set if the Debug
Security Server can debug the process. This is achieved by adding the keyword
DEBUGGABLE to the executable file’s MMP file. Any thread or
process in the Observed set that leads to application failure results in the
creation of a core dump.
- System Crash Monitor
-
The System Crash Monitor (SCM) provides a mechanism for gathering
data about crashes within the Symbian platform kernel. The SCM can be used for
analysis of user-side crashes. You can configure the SCM to collect different
kinds of data when a system crash occurs and outputs the data into a selected
format. The data can be saved in a documented format, for example the Symbian
ELF format that can then be analysed by another set of tools.
- Reserved Crash Partition
-
The reserved crash partition stores system crash information that
it receives from the SCM. The reserved crash partition stores information on a
first-in-first-out basis. For instance, when the SCM attempts to write new
crash information to a completely full reserved crash partition, the initial
crash details stored in the partition are removed to accommodate the newer
crash details. The amount of memory freed in the reserved crash partition is
equal to the size of the crash information to be included. However, the
reserved crash partition is not updated if the size of the crash information to
be included is greater than the capacity of the partition.
You can also configure the SCM to enable the reserved crash
partition store information on multiple crashes. For details, see
Configuring the SCM for Multiple Crashes.
- Core Dump UI
-
The primary means of accessing the Core Dump Subsystem
configuration settings, listing system crashes and application failures, and
generating output files is through the Core Dump UI. The Core Dump UI allows
you to view the following:
Copyright ©2009 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies). All rights reserved. License: SFL
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