Commands of idbg

Commands of idbg

Almost all idbg commands are concerned with displaying kernel memory data in different ways. There are commands to display almost every type of kernel data.

The vocabulary of commands changes from release to release, and can change within releases by software patches. Also, the commands available depend on which support modules are loaded; for example lock and semaphore meters cannot be displayed unless the ksynch_meter module is loaded (see "Including Lock Metering in the Kernel Image"). Only a few commands are listed in the idbg(1M) reference page.

The commands summarized in this book are generally useful and available on all platforms in the current release of IRIX. For a complete (but cursory) list, use the command itself.

# idbg help | lp

In general, commands take zero or one argument. Typically the argument is a number, which can be any of the following:

A kernel symbol, optionally +offset
A number in hexadecimal (starting with 0x)
A number in octal (starting with 0)
A number in decimal.

The number is interpreted in the context of the command: sometimes it represents a process ID (pid), sometimes a process "slot" number or a buffer number. Often commands treat positive numbers as slot numbers or table indexes, while negative numbers are treated as addresses in kernel space.