Debugging with GDB Manual The GNU Source-Level Debugger (769148-001, March 2014)

Limitations of GDB Support under ARIES
• No support for debuggers other than HP 9000 HP-UX GDB for debugging HP 9000
applications under ARIES on HP-UX 11i Integrity servers.
• No support for old GDB versions (of HP-UX 10.20 and earlier). However, debugging of HP-UX
10.20 applications using a HP-UX 11.0 (and newer) HP 9000 GDB is supported.
• HP 9000 GDB behaves differently for child processes created using fork() and vfork()
system calls. ARIES emulates fork() and vfork() system calls identically. The exact behavior
shown by HP 9000 GDB under ARIES may differ from that on a HP 9000 HP-UX server.
• If the debugged process is blocking in a system call, any attempt to get to the GDB command
prompt by pressing ctrl-C does not work. The process needs to be killed from a different shell.
• ARIES does not provide true emulation of MxN threads, and thus does not support debugging
of HP 9000 applications that are linked with pthreads library and create threads in MxN
model.
NOTE: The HP 9000 applications linked with MxN pthreads library are emulated under
ARIES as traditional 1x1 threads, and thus can only be debugged under ARIES as any other
non-MxN multi-threaded application.
• ARIES supports debugging of 32-bit and 64-bit HP 9000 HP-UX applications using 32-bit HP
9000 HP-UX GDB. 64-bit HP 9000 HP-UX gdb is not supported under ARIES.
Attaching GDB to an already running emulated process
You can attach GDB to an already running HP 9000 application process on HP-UX 11i for HP
Integrity servers to debug the application. After a successful attach, all of the GDB commands work
in exactly the same manner as they do on an HP 9000 HP-UX server.
Use the steps below to attach GDB to HP 9000 application process under ARIES on HP-UX 11i
Integrity servers:
• Perform the same preparatory steps as required for debugging an HP 9000 HP-UX application
using GDB under ARIES on HP-UX 11i Integrity server.
• Invoke GDB as follows:
gdb <pa_process_name> <pa_process_name>
You can also invoke GDB through any of the attach modes supported by GDB using the -pid
<pa_pid> option or by issuing the attach <pa_pid> command at the gdb prompt
After the debugging, the process can continue or abort, as specified by the user. This feature is
especially useful when triaging problems in an environment with a large number of processes and
a mix of Integrity native and HP 9000 processes.
Detecting memory leaks using GDB under ARIES
Applications cannot leak memory under ARIES unless they do so on HP 9000 servers. HP GDB
can be used to detect memory leaks of HP 9000 applications under ARIES. See the HP GDB
documentation for more details.
Visual Interface for HP WDB
HP WDB includes an HP-supported Visual Interface for HP WDB with both graphical and terminal
modes. The interface is based on Vim 5.7 and HP WDB. This interface replaces the -tui mode
on Itanium-based systems.
When you use the interface you are actually using vim, which is a vi-compatible editor. With the
interface you can use vi commands to browse in the HP WDB display.
176 HP-UX Configuration-Specific Information