Writing Device Drivers

Commands

The general form of an adb(1M) or kadb(1M) command is:

	[ address ] [ ,count ] command [;]

If address is omitted, the current location is used (`.' could also be used to represent the current location). The address can be a kernel symbol. If count is omitted, it defaults to 1.

Commands to adb consist of a verb followed by a modifier or list of modifiers. Verbs can be:

?	Prints locations starting at address in the executable.
/	Prints locations starting at address in the core file.
=	Prints the value of address itself.
>	Assigns a value to a variable or register.
<	Reads a value from a variable or register.
RETURN	Repeats the previous command with a count of 1. Increments `.' (the current location).

With ?, /, and =, output format specifiers can be used. Lowercase letters normally print 2 bytes, uppercase letters print 4 bytes:

o, O	2-, 4-byte octal
g	8-byte octal
G	8-byte unsigned octal
d,D	2-, 4-byte decimal
e	8-byte decimal
E	8-byte unsigned decimal
x,X	2-, 4-byte hexadecimal
J	8-byte hexadecimal
K	4-byte hexadecimal for 32-bit programs, 8-byte hexadecimal for 64-bit programs
u,U	2-, 4-byte unsigned decimal
f,F	4-, 8-byte floating point
c	Prints the addressed character.
C	Prints the addressed character using ^ escape notation.
s	Prints the addressed string.
S	Prints the addressed string using ^ escape notation.
i	Prints as machine instructions (disassemble).
a	Prints the value of `.' in symbolic form.
w,W	2-, 4-byte write

Note -

Understand exactly what sizes the objects are, and what effects changing them might have, before making any changes.

For example, to set a bit in the moddebug variable when debugging the driver, first examine the value of moddebug, then set it to the desired bit.

kadb[0]: moddebug/Xmoddebug:
moddebug:       1000
kadb[0]: moddebug/W 0x80001000moddebug:       0x1000 = 0x80001000

Routines can be disassembled with the `i' command. This is useful when tracing crashes, since the only information may be the program counter at the time of the crash. For example, to print the first four instructions of the kmem_alloc function:

kadb[0]: kmem_alloc,4?i
kmem_alloc:
kmem_alloc: save    %sp, -0x60, %sp
sub     %i0, 0x1, %l6
sra     %l6, 0x3, %i5
tst     %i5

To show the addresses also, specify symbolic notation with the `a' command.

kadb[0]: kmem_alloc,4?ai
kmem_alloc:    
kmem_alloc:     save    %sp, -0x60, %sp
kmem_alloc+4:   sub     %i0, 0x1, %l6
kmem_alloc+8:   sra     %l6, 0x3, %i5
kmem_alloc+0xc: tst     %i5