RHBA-2008:0332 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

An updated gdb package that fixes several bugs and adds an enhancement is
now available.

Description

The GNU debugger, GDB, allows the debugging of programs written in C, C++,
and other languages, by executing them in a controlled fashion, and then
printing out their data.

This updated package fixes the following bugs:

• arrows keys did not work to browse the history of the breakpoint command

list input.

• gdb was unable to track forked child processes, and thus, missed the

breakpoints of the forked child processes. In this updated package, a
"Detaching after fork from child process" message is displayed for these
situations.

• in certain situations, watchpoints were missed after a debugged program

created a new process.

• various PowerPC backtrace cases, including an unwinding by debuginfo,

have been resolved.

• on PowerPC architectures, when a binary was built with optimization level

2, gdb gave a bad value for the function argument, after calling the "bt"
(backtrace) command.

• gdb was unable to debug threaded programs that were being linked fully

statically.

• early during the start of gdb debugging, a zombie process was created.
• gdb hanged when the first thread of a process exited.
• on PowerPC architectures, gdb failed to build from the source RPM.
• it was possible for the pending signal to be lost during process

attachment.

• gdb can correctly attach to an already stopped (by SIGSTOP) process,

which makes it compatible with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 kernel
errata, RHBA-2008:8013-04.

• in certain situations, breakpoints in C++ constructors and destructors

were missed.

• certain watchpoints were missed during the "step" command.
• a segmentation fault occurred when the "extern C" function was called by

gdb from a C++ program.

• on Itanium architectures, the "gcore" command executed very slowly for

very large debugged programs, for example, a program that can allocate,
and then execute, more than 2GB of memory. This may have caused certain
databases to consume a large amount of memory, for example, 16GB or
more. The target program could not be restarted until gcore finished.

• on Itanium architectures, a memory leaked caused the gdb memory usage to

continually increase, when the "c" (continue) command was executed. The
memory was not freed while gdb was being executed.

As well, this updated package adds the following enhancement:

• support for the Java DW_TAG_interface_type has been added, as used by

the GNU Compiler for Java, to make gdb compatible with gcc 4.1.2, as
shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2.

Users of gdb are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which resolves
these issues and adds this enhancement.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_58_10188

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 ia64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 5 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 5 ppc
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 5 i386

Fixes

• BZ - 215816 - Arrow keys no longer works in breakpoint command list
• BZ - 235197 - FEAT: Always display: Detaching after fork from child process ...
• BZ - 237096 - Watchpoints missed after inferior's fork()
• BZ - 238333 - PPC CFI and non-CFI backtraces broken
• BZ - 244677 - killing gdb debuggee leaves zombie processes
• BZ - 247466 - gdb src.rpm won't build in ppc32/ppc64 environment
• BZ - 292971 - Pending signal may get lost on `attach'
• BZ - 302751 - [RHEL 5] GDB fails to break in the $delete destructor
• BZ - 426600 - DW_TAG_interface_type support

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)