Search for DWZ files in debug-file-directories as well
When Debian (and Ubuntu) builds its binaries, it (still) doesn't use
dwz's "--relative" option. This causes their debuginfo files to
carry a .gnu_debugaltlink section containing a full pathname to the
DWZ alt debug file, like this:
$ readelf -wk /usr/bin/cat
Contents of the .gnu_debugaltlink section:
Separate debug info file: /usr/lib/debug/.dwz/x86_64-linux-gnu/coreutils.debug
Build-ID (0x14 bytes):
ee 76 5d 71 97 37 ce 46 99 44 32 bb e8 a9 1a ef 99 96 88 db
Contents of the .gnu_debuglink section:
Separate debug info file:
06d3bee37b8c7e67b31cb2689cb351102ae73b.debug
CRC value: 0x53267655
This usually works OK, because most of the debuginfo files installed
via apt will be present in /usr/lib/debug anyway. However, imagine
the following scenario:
- You are using /usr/bin/cat, it crashes on you and generates a
corefile.
- You don't want/need to "apt install" the debuginfo file for
coreutils from the repositories. Instead, you already have the
debuginfo files in a separate directory (e.g., $HOME/dbgsym).
- You start GDB and "set debug-file-directory $HOME/dbgsym/usr/lib/debug".
You then get the following message:
$ gdb -ex 'set debug-file-directory ./dbgsym/usr/lib/debug' -ex 'file /bin/cat' -ex 'core-file ./cat.core'
GNU gdb (Ubuntu 10.1-0ubuntu1) 10.1
...
Reading symbols from /bin/cat...
Reading symbols from /home/sergio/gdb/dbgsym/usr/lib/debug/.build-id/bc/
06d3bee37b8c7e67b31cb2689cb351102ae73b.debug...
could not find '.gnu_debugaltlink' file for /home/sergio/gdb/dbgsym/usr/lib/debug/.build-id/bc/
06d3bee37b8c7e67b31cb2689cb351102ae73b.debug
This error happens because GDB is trying to locate the build-id
link (inside /home/sergio/gdb/dbgsym/usr/lib/debug/.build-id) for the
DWZ alt debug file, which doesn't exist. Arguably, this is a problem
with how dh_dwz works in Debian, and it's something I'm also planning
to tackle. But, back at the problem at hand.
Besides not being able to find the build-id link in the directory
mentioned above, GDB also tried to open the DWZ alt file using its
filename. The problem here is that, since we don't have the distro's
debuginfo installed, it can't find anything under /usr/lib/debug that
satisfies it.
It occurred to me that a good way to workaround this problem is to
actually try to locate the DWZ alt debug file inside the
debug-file-directories (that were likely provided by the user). So
this is what the proposed patch does.
The idea here is simple: get the filename extracted from the
.gnu_debugaltlink section, and manipulate it in order to replace the
initial part of the path (everything before "/.dwz/") by whatever
debug-file-directories the user might have provided.
I talked with Mark Wielaard and he agrees this is a sensible approach.
In fact, apparently this is something that eu-readelf also does.
I regtested this code, and no regressions were found.
2020-12-01 Sergio Durigan Junior <sergiodj@sergiodj.net>
* dwarf2/read.c (dwz_search_other_debugdirs): New function.
(dwarf2_get_dwz_file): Convert 'filename' to a
std::string. Use dwz_search_other_debugdirs to search for DWZ
files in the debug-file-directories provided by the user as well.