RHBA-2009:0207 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

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

Description

The GNU Project 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:

• gdb could crash (segmentation fault) in the Text User Interface (TUI)

mode on the "focus prev" command.

• gdb could crash (segmentation fault) on a watchpoint of an expression,

depending on variables going out of the current code scope.

• on Intel Itanium-based systems, some variables could not be printed for

very large programs. Errors such as "dwarf2_read_address: Corrupted DWARF
expression" may have occurred.

• a bug, which caused excessive slowness of the "info frame" command when

debugging programs using libraries with a large number of symbols, has been
resolved.

• a bug that occurred when debugging programs using shared libraries with

no code sections, which may have caused GDB to crash on Itanium-based
systems, has been resolved.

• watchpoints on PowerPC-based systems may have caused false SIGTRAP

signals. With this update, GDB should handle watchpoints correctly. Note,
however: hardware watchpoints are still not reliable or supported on
PowerPC-based systems. See Red Hat Bugzilla #437970 for details.

Note: this updated package upgrades GDB to the upstream 6.8 version. This
includes a number of bug fixes and enhancements not listed here. Refer to
the following for a full list of bug fixes and enhancements:
http://sourceware.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/gdb/NEWS?rev=1.259.2.1&cvsroot =src
From this changelog, the following major fix is included in this update:

• GDB now supports breakpoints with multiple locations, including

breakpoints on C++ constructors, inside C++ templates, and in inlined
functions.

All gdb users should 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/docs/DOC-11259

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 - 431374 - 'info frame' subcommand is slow if the library with great many symbols is linked.
• BZ - 439234 - Corrupted DWARF expression
• BZ - 439607 - Testcase gdb.threads/attach-stopped.exp FAILs on powerpc
• BZ - 454303 - RHEL-5.3 with gdb-6.8 (F-9 gdb)
• BZ - 471875 - infinite loop in gdb using watch on ia64

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)