When the underlying debugport transport is reliable, GDB's additional
checksums and acknowledgements are redundant. NoAckMode eliminates the
the acks and allows us to skip checking RX checksums. The GDB packet
framing does not change, so unfortunately (valid) checksums are still
included as message trailers.
The gdb(4) stub in FreeBSD advertises support for the feature in response to
the client's 'qSupported' request IFF the current debugport has the
gdb_dbfeatures flag GDB_DBGP_FEAT_RELIABLE set. Currently, only netgdb(4)
supports this feature.
If the remote GDB client supports the feature and does not have it disabled
via a GDB configuration knob, it may instruct our gdb(4) stub to enter
NoAckMode. Unless and until it issues that command, we must continue to
transmit acks as usual (and for now, we continue to wait until we receive
them as well, even if we know the debugport is on a reliable transport).
In the kernel sources, the sense of the flag representing the state of the
feature is reversed from that of the GDB command. (I.e., it is
'gdb_ackmode', not 'gdb_noackmode.') This is to avoid confusing double-
negative conditions.
For reference, see:
* https://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Packet-Acknowledgment.html
* https://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/General-Query-Packets.html#QStartNoAckMode
Reviewed by: jhb, markj (both earlier version)
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D21761
NetGDB(4) is a component of a system using a panic-time network stack to
remotely debug crashed FreeBSD kernels over the network, instead of
traditional serial interfaces.
There are three pieces in the complete NetGDB system.
First, a dedicated proxy server must be running to accept connections from
both NetGDB and gdb(1), and pass bidirectional traffic between the two
protocols.
Second, the NetGDB client is activated much like ordinary 'gdb' and
similarly to 'netdump' in ddb(4) after a panic. Like other debugnet(4)
clients (netdump(4)), the network interface on the route to the proxy server
must be online and support debugnet(4).
Finally, the remote (k)gdb(1) uses 'target remote <proxy>:<port>' (like any
other TCP remote) to connect to the proxy server.
The NetGDB v1 protocol speaks the literal GDB remote serial protocol, and
uses a 1:1 relationship between GDB packets and sequences of debugnet
packets (fragmented by MTU). There is no encryption utilized to keep
debugging sessions private, so this is only appropriate for local
segments or trusted networks.
Submitted by: John Reimer <john.reimer AT emc.com> (earlier version)
Discussed some with: emaste, markj
Relnotes: sure
Differential Revision: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D21568
