breakpoint()

void breakpoint(void)

The breakpoint() action induces a kernel breakpoint, causing the system to stop and transfer control to the kernel debugger. The kernel debugger will emit a string denoting the DTrace probe that triggered the action. For example, if one were to do the following:

# dtrace -w -n clock:entry'{breakpoint()}'
dtrace: allowing destructive actions
dtrace: description 'clock:entry' matched 1 probe

On Solaris running on SPARC, the following message might appear on the console:

dtrace: breakpoint action at probe fbt:genunix:clock:entry (ecb 30002765700)
Type  'go' to resume
ok

On Solaris running on x86, the following message might appear on the console:

dtrace: breakpoint action at probe fbt:genunix:clock:entry (ecb d2b97060)
stopped at      int20+0xb:      ret
kmdb[0]:

The address following the probe description is the address of the enabling control block (ECB) within DTrace. You can use this address to determine more details about the probe enabling that induced the breakpoint action.

A mistake with the breakpoint() action may cause it to be called far more often than intended. This behavior might in turn prevent you from even terminating the DTrace consumer that is triggering the breakpoint actions. In this situation, set the kernel integer variable dtrace_destructive_disallow to 1. This setting will disallow all destructive actions on the machine. Apply this setting only in this particular situation.

The exact method for setting dtrace_destructive_disallow will depend on the kernel debugger that you are using. If using the OpenBoot PROM on a SPARC system, use w!:

ok 1 dtrace_destructive_disallow w!
ok

Confirm that the variable has been set using w?:

ok dtrace_destructive_disallow w?
1
ok

Continue by typing go:

ok go

If using kmdb(1) on x86 or SPARC systems, use the 4–byte write modifier (W) with the / formatting dcmd:

kmdb[0]: dtrace_destructive_disallow/W 1
dtrace_destructive_disallow:    0x0             =       0x1
kmdb[0]:

Continue using :c:

kadb[0]: :c

To re-enable destructive actions after continuing, you will need to explicitly reset dtrace_destructive_disallow back to 0 using mdb(1):

# echo "dtrace_destructive_disallow/W 0" | mdb -kw
dtrace_destructive_disallow:    0x1             =       0x0
#