RHBA-2012:0930 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated gdb packages that fix multiple bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The GNU Debugger (GDB) is the standard debugger for Linux. With GDB, users can
debug programs written in C, C++, and other languages by executing them in a
controlled fashion and printing out their data.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• To load a core file, GDB requires the binaries that were used to produce the

core file. GDB uses a built-in detection to load the matching binaries
automatically. However, you can specify arbitrary binaries manually and override
the detection. Previously, loading other binaries that did not match the invoked
core file could cause GDB to terminate unexpectedly. With this update, the
underlying code has been modified and GDB no longer crashes under these
circumstances. (BZ#739685)

• Previously, GDB could terminate unexpectedly when loading symbols for a C++

program compiled with early GCC compilers due to errors in the
cp_scan_for_anonymous_namespaces() function. With this update, an upstream patch
that fixes this bug has been adopted and GDB now loads any known executables
without crashing. (BZ#750341)

• If GDB failed to find the associated debuginfo rpm symbol files, GDB displayed

the following message suggesting installation of the symbol files using the yum
utility:

Missing separate debuginfo for the main executable file
Try: yum --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo='*-debuginfo' install
/usr/lib/debug/.build-id/47/830504b69d8312361b1ed465ba86c9e815b800

However, the suggested "--enablerepo='*-debuginfo'" option failed to work with
RHN (Red Hat Network) debug repositories. This update corrects the option in the
message to "--enablerepo='*-debug*'" and the suggested command works as
expected. (BZ#781571)

• On PowerPC platforms, DWARF information created by the IBM XL Fortran compiler

does not contain the DW_AT_type attribute for DW_TAG_subrange_type; however,
DW_TAG_subrange_type in the DWARF information generated by GCC always contains
the DW_AT_type attribute. Previously, GDB could interpret arrays from IBM XL
Fortran compiler incorrectly as it was missing the DW_AT_type attribute, even
though this is in accordance with the DWARF standard. This updated GDB now
correctly provides a stub index type if DW_AT_type is missing for any
DW_TAG_subrange_type, and processes debug info from both IBM XL Fortran and GCC
compilers correctly. (BZ#806920)

All users of gdb are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix
these bugs.

Solution

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

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red
Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/articles/11258/

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 750341 - gdb crashes on some dwarf2 executables
• BZ - 752834 - FAILs in testsuite when using glibc with probes
• BZ - 781571 - Fix Fedora --enablerepo='*-debuginfo' suggestion for RHEL

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)