[PATCH] [makedumpfile] Follow debuginfo link of vmlinux file

[Bernhard Walle]

Hello,

* Dave Anderson <anderson at redhat.com> [2007-05-24 20:31]:
> The crash utility hides the details of there being a separate debug
> file in the same way the gdb does when working with a binary executable
> that has a separate debuginfo file.  It tries *not* to be ambiguous,
> i.e., the point is to stay true to the "crash vmlinux vmcore" model.

It's documented in the GDB documentation:
http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb_16.html#SEC154

> That being said, does any other distro besides RHEL3 actually use
> the split vmlinux/vmlinux.debug format?  Thankfully Red Hat came
> to its senses in RHEL4 and beyond...

SUSE uses the split out debug information, starting from SLES 10 (also
openSUSE).  It makes sense on architectures that don't need a
separate, bootable kernel image (like x86_64 and i586) but can boot
the ELF file directly such as PPC and IA64.


Thanks,
   Bernhard