[Crash-utility] [ANNOUNCE] crash version 5.1.3 is available

[Dave Anderson]

 - Implemented support for using vmlinux files that have been compressed
   with either gzip or bzip2.  For examples:

      # crash vmlinux.gz vmcore
      # crash vmlinuz.bz2
       
   The uncompressed file will be temporarily stored either in /var/tmp
   or in the directory specified in a TMPDIR shell environment variable.
   The compressed filename must at least begin with "vmlinux" so as to 
   avoid any attempt to uncompress a vmcore file.  Gzip'd vmlinux files
   are preferable since the uncompress operation is less time-consuming.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Prevent an unnecessary warning message that was introduced in version
   5.1.0 that indicates "WARNING: cannot read .debug_frame data from
   <namelist>" when running against vmlinux executables that have a
   separate ".debug" debuginfo file, such as RHEL3 vmlinux kernels.
   With the patch, the message is only printed if CRASHDEBUG(1).
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the x86_64 "bt" command if the shutdown NMI is issued to a
   32-bit task that has executed a "sysenter" instruction and the RSP 
   still contains the zero value loaded from the MSR_IA32_SYSENTER_ESP
   register.  Without the patch, the backtrace issues a warning message
   indicating "WARNING: possibly bogus exception frame", and is unable 
   to make a transition from the NMI exception stack.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fixes for the gdb-7.0 sources to address gcc-4.6 compile failures.
   Without the patch, gcc-4.6 generates "error: variable '<variable>'
   set but not used [-Werror=unused-but-set-variable]" fatal errors when
   the (default) -Werror flag is used.  Previous gcc versions considered
   local variables were simply set to some value to be "used", but that 
   is no longer the case.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fixes for the top-level crash sources to address gcc-4.6 compiler
   warnings or errors.  Without the patch, building with gcc-4.6 would
   generate numerous "error: variable '<variable>' set but not used
   [-Werror=unused-but-set-variable]" errors or warnings, depending upon
   whether "make warn" or "make Warn" was used.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Removed -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 from the WARNING_OPTIONS string due 
   to a memmove() oddity seen when using it in conjunction with -O2 
   with gcc-4.6.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Implemented three new options for the "search" command.  This patch 
   adds the -c option to search for character strings, the -w option to 
   search for unsigned hexadecimal integer values, and -h to search for
   unsigned hexadecimal short values.   The integer and short values are
   searched on integer and short alignments respectively.  The -w option
   is only meaningful on 64-bit systems, to be used in order to search 
   both the upper and lower 32-bits of each 64-bit long for the 32-bit 
   value.  Strings are searched across contiguous page boundaries, where 
   the page boundaries being crossed are relevant to the memory type 
   being searched, i.e., kernel virtual, user virtual, or physical 
   memory. 
   (bob.montgomery at hp.com)

 - Restrict the new "search -p" option to physical memory pages that 
   have an mem_map page structure assigned to them. 
   (anderson at redhat.com, bob.montgomery at hp.com)

 - Hardwire the declaration of the user_regs_struct in x86_64.c for
   kernels whose debuginfo data does not contain it.
   (wency at cn.fujitsu.com)
 
 - Fix for compiler warnings when building makedumpfile.c and memory.c 
   with "make warn" on 32-bit systems.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix to more correctly determine the KVM I/O hole size and location.
   The I/O hole size to this point in time is either 1GB or 512MB, but
   its setting is hardwired into the Qemu code that was used to create 
   the dumpfile.  The dumpfile is a "savevm" file that is designed to be
   used for guest migration, and since inter-version save/load is not 
   supported, the I/O hole information does not have to encoded into the
   dumpfile.  Without the patch, the I/O hole for dumpfiles created by 
   older Qemu version was not being set to 1GB, so if the KVM guest was 
   configured with more than 3GB of memory, the crash session would 
   typically display numerous "read error" messages during session 
   initialization.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the x86 "bt" command on RHEL6 kernels that contain a backport
   of upstream commit a00e817f42663941ea0aa5f85a9d1c4f8b212839, which
   moved x86 irq-exit functions to a special .kprobes.text section. 
   Without this patch, "bt" would show nonsensical backtraces that begin
   and end with the "ia32_sysenter_target" function, and would dump an 
   invalid kernel-entry exception frame.
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the x86 "bt" command to fix a possible failure to backtrace
   a non-active "swapper" task.  Without the patch, the backtrace would
   fail with the error message "bt: cannot resolve stack trace".
   (anderson at redhat.com)

 - Fix for the x86 "bt" command to prevent the display of a stale
   interrupt exception frame left on the stack of a non-active task.
   (anderson at redhat.com)
  
 Download from: http://people.redhat.com/anderson