Introduction to Crash Dump Analysis and the SunOS Kernel (ST-375)
This course replaces ST-370: Core Dump Analysis
The Introduction to Crash Dump Analysis and the SunOS Kernel course provides students with essential skills to diagnose and resolve system problems, beginning with whether a system problem is due to hardware or software. If it's hardware, which piece of hardware is causing the problem? If it's software, is there a patch that fixes this problem? What tools can be used to help identify the causes of system problems? Where can they be obtained, and how are they used? This course helps learners to answer these questions and to identify and resolve basic Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) problems successfully.
This course repackages:
ISA-160: Introduction to Solaris Crash Analysis
ISA-165: Kernel Overview
ISA-170: Introduction to fm
ISA-175: Introduction to adb, mdb, and crash
Skills Gained
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
Distinguish software-caused system crashes from hardware-caused system crashes
Retrieve initial analysis information from a crash dump using Solaris CAT, ACT, the adb debugger, and the mdb debugger
Distinguish among unique panic string, bad trap, and hang crash dumps
Identify appropriate SunSolve search strings for unique panic string and bad trap crash dumps
Use the SunSolve program to find bugs and cases related to the crash dumps or error messages
Given a C structure declaration, describe how the data structure is stored in memory and how it looks when displayed by Solaris CAT, the adb debugger, and the mdb debugger
Describe the major kernel subsystems and use Solaris CAT, the adb debugger, and the mdb debugger to display the subsystems' related data structures
Who Can Benefit
Students who can benefit from this course are experienced system administrators and support personnel at self-supporting Sun installations, as well as third-party driver developers.
Prerequisites
To succeed fully in this course, students should be able to:
Administer the Solaris OS on a Sun server
Understand basic operating system concepts
Use a World Wide Web (WWW) browser, such as the Netscape browser
Manipulate files and directories on a UNIX file system
Be familiar with fault analysis and problem-solving techniques
Access the messages file
Boot a Solaris OE machine
Modify OpenBoot PROM (OBP) variables
Use the SunSolve(SM) program effectively
Have a SunSolve account to access other than the free collections
Modify swap partition sizes
Have some familiarity with C programming concepts and syntax
Obtaining Prerequisites
Courses and reading to help students obtain these prerequisites include:
SA-239: Intermediate System Administration for the Solaris 9 Operating System
SA-299: Advanced System Administration for the Solaris 9 Operating System
The book Panic! by Chris Drake and Kimberly Brown
Code:
ST-375
Length:
5 days
Type:
Instructor-Led
Certified By:
Sun Microsystems
Tuition:
$3,500 / $2,975 GSA GOV.
This course is taught by Certified Sun Microsystems instructors. There is a difference. Learn More
This course is in the following categories. Click the categories to find similar courses and topics of interest.
Describe the mechanism and system resources necessary to create crash dumps
Describe how to configure a system to save crash dumps
Troubleshoot crash dump failures
Describe and run SunExplorer software
Describe system information used to analyze a system crash
Module 2 - Analyzing Information
Differentiate between software and hardware problems
Interpret the output from the prtdiag utility
Interpret the output from the Sun Explorer software
Analyze patch information
Describe the types of device names and their components
Display the device tree
Interpret information in the messages file
Interpret memory error messages
Module 3 - Understanding Data Structures
Describe how a C language structure looks in memory
Describe how a pointer is used in the C language
Describe linked lists
Describe stacks
Describe hashing
Module 4 - Analyzing System Crash Dumps
Define common terms used in describing information in crash dumps
Describe the information used for initial crash dump analysis
Describe information sources within the SunSolve program that are useful for resolving system crashes
Describe the type of information available in bug reports
Use the SunSolve program to locate technical information, bugs, and patches related to system crashes
Appropriately use the kenv tool
Use Automated Crash Tool (ACT) to obtain initial crash dump information
Use the adb debugger to obtain initial crash dump information
Use the Modular Debugger (MDB) to obtain initial crash dump information
Use Solaris Crash Analysis Tool (CAT) to obtain initial crash dump information
Module 5 - Introducing Kernel Features and Organization
Describe the advantages of a modular kernel
Define the difference between the SunOS software package and the Solaris OS package
Describe the location of kernel modules on disk
Describe the components of the SunOS software
Describe user processes
Describe interrupts
Describe multithreading
Describe the location of structure definitions
Module 6 - Exploring Kernel Services
Describe the major kernel services
Describe what traps are and how they are processed
Describe how system calls are processed
Describe what synchronization and protection are and why they are needed
Describe the Solaris OS locking mechanisms
Describe signals and how they are processed
Describe how interrupts of various levels are processed
Describe kernel clock handling
Describe what callouts are and how they are stored and processed
Describe what cyclics are and what parts of the kernel are clients of this service
Module 7 - Examining the Process Subsystem
Draw an image of a running multithreaded process
Describe multithreading in the kernel and processes
Identify the structures used by the kernel to support a process
Describe the process life cycle, including thread creation
Describe how threads are scheduled
Describe priority inversion and how the kernel resolves the problem
Describe how time stamps are used in the kernel
Describe how the kernel controls processors
Module 8 - Examining the Memory Subsystem
Describe memory management issues from the kernel perspective
Describe paged memory
Identify the process structures used in address translation
Describe anonymous memory
Describe kernel page structures and their use
Describe the MMU and the HAT layer
Describe the kernel address space
Describe kernel memory allocation
Describe paging and swapping
Module 9 - Examining the File and I/O Subsystem
Describe the user's view of the UNIX file system
Describe the basic file system structure
Describe the virtual file system framework
Describe how file system mounting and path name resolution are accomplished
Describe the use of the Directory Name Lookup Cache (DNLC)
Describe the UFS file system specific data structures
Describe process file management
Describe the use of the specfs file system
Describe the kernel device tree
Draw a simple stream and explain its elements
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