[Crash-utility] [ANNOUNCE] crash version 6.1.3 is available

[Dave Anderson]

Download from: http://people.redhat.com/anderson

Changelog:

 - Implemented a new "crash --log dumpfile" option which dumps the 
   kernel log buffer and exits.  A kernel namelist is not required,
   but the dumpfile must contain the VMCOREINFO data from the ELF 
   header of the original /proc/vmcore file that was created by the
   kexec/kdump facility.  Accordingly, this option supports kdump ELF 
   vmcores and compressed kdump vmcores created by the makedumpfile
   facility, including those that are in makedumpfile's intermediary
   "vmcore.flat" format.
   (anderson at redhat.com)
 
 - Fixes for the ppc64.c file to handle gcc-4.7.2 compiler warnings when
   building crash with "make warn", or compiler failures when building
   with "make Warn" on a PPC64 machine.  Without the patch, gcc-4.7.2 
   generates three "error: variable ‘<variable>’ set but not used 
   [-Werror=unused-but-set-variable]" messages.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Update the PPC64 architecure's internal storage of the kernel's 
   MAX_PHYSMEM_BITS value for Linux 3.7 and later kernels, which changed
   from 44 to 46 to for 64TB support.  Without the patch, there is no 
   known issue, but the stored value should be correct.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the "mount" command's header display to indicate "MOUNT"
   instead of "VFSMOUNT" on Linux 3.3 and later kernels because the
   the first column contains a mount structure address instead of a
   vfsmount structure address.  For those later kernels, it is 
   permissable to enter either the mount structure address, or the 
   address of the vfsmount structure that is embedded within it, as 
   an optional argument.  The output has also been tightened up so
   that the DIRNAME field is not shifted to the right based upon the
   DEVNAME field length.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the "mount <superblock>" search option on 2.6.32 and later
   kernels.  Without the patch, it is possible that multiple filesystems
   will be displayed.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Update to the "mount" help page to indicate that a dentry address 
   may be used as a search option.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the "ps -l [pid|task|command]" option to display the 
   specified tasks sorted with the most recently-run task (the largest 
   last_run/timestamp) shown first, as is done with the "ps -l" option
   with no arguments.  Without the patch, the timestamp data gets 
   displayed in the order of the "[pid|task|command]" arguments.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Added the "ps" command to the set of supported "foreach" commands,
   serving as an alternative manner of passing task-identifying
   arguments to the "ps" command.  For example, a command such as
   "foreach RU ps" can be accomplished without having to pipe normal
   "ps" output to "grep RU".  All "ps" options are supported from the
   "foreach" framework.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the "ps -G" restrictor option such that it also takes affect
   if the -p, -c, -l, -a, -r or -g options are used.  Without the 
   patch, thread group filtering would only take effect when the default 
   "ps" command is used without any of the options above.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fortify the internal hq_open() function to return FALSE if it is
   already open, and have restore_sanity() and restore_ifile_sanity()
   call hq_close() unconditionally. 
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Added the "extend" command to the set of built-in commands that
   support minimal mode.  A new MINIMAL flag has been created for 
   extension modules to set in their command_table_entry.flags field(s)
   to signal that a command supports minimal mode.  If the crash session
   has been invoked with --minimal, then the "extend" command will 
   require that the module registers at least one command that has 
   the MINIMAL bit set.
   (per.fransson.ml at gmail.com)

 - Prevent the "__crc_*" symbols from being added to the the ARM kernel
   symbol list.
   (per.fransson.ml at gmail.com, rabin at rab.in)

 - Prevent the "PRRR" and "NMRR" absolute symbols from being added to
   the ARM kernel symbol list.  Without the patch, it allows an invalid
   set of addresses to pass the check in the in_ksymbol_range() function.
   (per.fransson.ml at gmail.com)

 - Fix for the ppc.c file to handle a gcc-4.7.2 compiler warning when
   building crash with "make warn", or compiler failures when building
   with "make Warn" on a PPC machine.  Without the patch, gcc-4.7.2
   generates the message "error: variable ‘dm’ set but not used
   [-Werror=unused-but-set-variable]".
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Workaround for the "crash --osrelease dumpfile" option to be able
   to work with malformed ARM compressed kdump headers.  ARM compressed 
   kdumps that indicate header version 3 may contain a malformed 
   kdump_sub_header structure with offset_vmcoreinfo and size_vmcoreinfo
   fields offset by 4 bytes, and the actual vmcoreinfo data is not
   preceded by its ELF note header and its "VMCOREINFO" string.  This 
   workaround finds the vmcoreinfo data and patches the stored header's
   offset_vmcoreinfo and size_vmcoreinfo values.  Without the patch, the
   "--osrelease dumpfile" command line option fails with the message 
   "crash: compressed kdump: cannot lseek dump vmcoreinfo", followed by
   "unknown".
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the "help -n" option on 32-bit compressed kdumps.  Without
   the patch, the offset_vmcoreinfo, offset_eraseinfo, and offset_note
   fields of the kdump_sub_header have their upper 32-bits clipped off
   when displayed.  However, it should be harmless since the offset 
   values point into the first few pages of the dumpfile.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Update of the extensions/echo.c extension module example, and the
   "extend" help page, to utilize a constructor function to call the
   register_extension() function.  The _init() and _fini() functions
   have been designated as obsolete for usage by dlopen() and dlclose().
   The echo.c example module has been modified to contain echo_init() 
   and echo_fini() functions marked as __attribute__((constructor)) and
   __attribute__((destructor)) respectively.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Updated extensions/dminfo.c, extensions/snap.c and extensions/trace.c
   to replace their _init() and _fini() functions with constructor and
   destructor functions.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the "bt" command on the PPC64 architecture when running 
   on Linux 3.7 kernel threads.  Without the patch, some kernel threads
   may fail to terminate on the final ".ret_from_kernel_thread" frame,
   repeating that frame endlessly, because the stack linkage pointer 
   points back to itself instead of being NULL.
   (anderson at redhat.com)