Software Diagnostics Library

After 4 years in print this bestselling title needs an update to address minor changes, include extra examples and reference additional research published in Volumes 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

• Title: Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 1
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: OpenTask (Summer 2012)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24

• Paperback: 800 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1-908043-35-1

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• ISBN-13: 978-1-908043-36-8

The cover for both paperback and hardcover titles will also have a matte finish. We used A Memory Window artwork for the back cover.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

I’m pleased to announce that MDAA, Volume 5 is available in PDF format:

www.dumpanalysis.org/Memory+Dump+Analysis+Anthology+Volume+5

It features:

- 25 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 11 new pattern interaction case studies (including software tracing)
- 16 new trace analysis patterns
- 7 structural memory patterns
- 4 modeling case studies for memory dump analysis patterns
- Discussion of 3 common analysis mistakes
- Malware analysis case study
- Computer independent architecture of crash analysis report service
- Expanded coverage of software narratology
- Metaphysical and theological implications of memory dump worldview
- More pictures of memory space and physicalist art
- Classification of memory visualization tools
- Memory visualization case studies
- Close reading of the stories of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson’s observational patterns
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, and Volume 4

Its table of contents is available here:

www.dumpanalysis.org/MDAA/MDA-Anthology-V5-TOC.pdf

Paperback and hardcover versions should be available in a week or two. I also started working on Volume 6 that should be available in November-December.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Treat yourself, your family and friends with this selection of gifts from OpenTask store:

The perfect binary gift for your family and friends

The perfect gift for software engineers

The perfect gift for job hunters

The perfect coffee table book

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Five volumes of cross-disciplinary Anthology (dubbed by the author “The Summa Memorianica”) lay the foundation of the scientific discipline of Memoretics (study of computer memory snapshots and their evolution in time) that is also called Memory Dump and Software Trace Analysis.ca

The 5th volume contains revised, edited, cross-referenced, and thematically organized selected DumpAnalysis.org blog posts about crash dump, software trace analysis and debugging written in February 2010 - October 2010 for software engineers developing and maintaining products on Windows platforms, quality assurance engineers testing software on Windows platforms, technical support and escalation engineers dealing with complex software issues, and security researchers, malware analysts and reverse engineers. The fifth volume features:

- 25 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 11 new pattern interaction case studies (including software tracing)
- 16 new trace analysis patterns
- 7 structural memory patterns
- 4 modeling case studies for memory dump analysis patterns
- Discussion of 3 common analysis mistakes
- Malware analysis case study
- Computer independent architecture of crash analysis report service
- Expanded coverage of software narratology
- Metaphysical and theological implications of memory dump worldview
- More pictures of memory space and physicalist art
- Classification of memory visualization tools
- Memory visualization case studies
- Close reading of the stories of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson’s observational patterns
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, and Volume 4

Product information:

• Title: Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 5
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (10 December 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-96-4

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (10 December 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-97-1

Back cover features memory space art image Hot Computation: Memory on Fire.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

I’m pleased to announce that MDAA, Volume 4 is available in PDF format:

www.dumpanalysis.org/Memory+Dump+Analysis+Anthology+Volume+4

It features:

- 15 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 13 new pattern interaction case studies
- 10 new trace analysis patterns
- 6 new Debugware patterns and case study
- Workaround patterns
- Updated checklist
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3
- Memory visualization tutorials
- Memory space art

Its table of contents is available here:

http://www.dumpanalysis.org/MDAA/MDA-Anthology-V4-TOC.pdf

Paperback and hardcover versions should be available in a week or two. I also started working on Volume 5 that should be available in December.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

While browsing architecture books on Amazon I found one with a glitch when you use look inside feature (at the time of this writing):

All this reminds me of fragments I see in naturally visualized computer memory that prompts me to conjecture that most all (if not all) computer glitches stem from memory restructuring (a postmodern term for memory corruption).

The book with search inside glitch: Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

If you attended Fundamentals of Complete Crash and Hang Memory Dump Analysis you probably remember the memory dump visualization question that I repeat here on this slide fragment:

I got a few responses:

“Unfortunately they are not identical - visual inspection shows that. I tried differencing the relevant sub-images in Photoshop and I can’t get zero.  Of course this can be due to compression artifacts and, more likely, the fact that the duplication is not required to be aligned to the borders. A stronger confirmation/refutation would require unrolling the bitmap to one dimension and sliding it back and forth until maximum correlation is found. Since I have not done the examples step by step, I am left guessing about just what the dump you show illustrates. An aliased memory mapped area is my first guess, and a flip/flop garbage collector is my second.”

“perhaps some module such as a .NET assembly is getting loaded twice in a .NET app, pre .NET 4, such as is dicsussed in this thread:
http://forum.sysinternals.com/why-some-net-assemblies-are-duplicated-in-memory_topic15279_post121591.html“

Initially I also thought that there was the same module loaded twice from different location like in Duplicated Module pattern. Unfortunately lm command didn’t show any duplicated loaded and unloaded modules as well as any hidden modules. So I looked at address information and found two identical relatively large regions at the beginning:

0:000> !address
[...]
BaseAddress EndAddress+1 RegionSize Type       State      Protect       Usage
[...]
0`00470000  0`007f0000   0`00380000 MEM_MAPPED MEM_COMMIT PAGE_READONLY <unclassified>
[…]
0`01f10000  0`02290000   0`00380000 MEM_MAPPED MEM_COMMIT PAGE_READONLY <unclassified>
[…]

The image above was scaled by ImageMagic from a bitmap generated by Dump2Picture:

The original image from Dump2Picture had different colors:

I quickly checked the colorimetric structure of those regions: 0`00470000  0`007f0000 and 0`01f10000  0`02290000 using MemPicture WinDbg script and they seem to conform with the magnified picture above:

0:000> $$>a< d:\Dump2Picture\mempicture.txt 0`00470000 L?0`007f0000-0`00470000
Writing 380000 bytes

C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)>dump2picture d2p-range.bin d2p-range.bmp

Dump2Picture version 1.1
Written by Dmitry Vostokov, 2007

d2p-range.bmp
d2p-range.bin
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)>d2p-range.bmp
.shell: Process exited

Here is the magnified slice from the original picture:

We see the same partitioning if we juxtapose the original picture and the picture of the address region:

Also these regions are completely identical if we compare their data:

0:000> c 0`00470000 L?(0`007f0000-0`00470000)/8 0`01f10000

So it looks like some file was mapped twice. Inspected via dc command it shows remarkable regularity not seen in executable modules. This regularity also manifests itself in color:

In order to verify I modeled this by writing a simple program that maps a file twice passed as a command line parameter:

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
 if (argc < 2)
 {
  puts("Usage: MappedFiles.exe <File_Name_To_Map>\n");
  return -1;
 }

 HANDLE hf = CreateFile(argv[1], GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
 HANDLE hm = CreateFileMapping(hf, NULL, PAGE_READONLY, 0, 0, NULL);
 MapViewOfFile(hm, FILE_MAP_READ, 0, 0, 0);

 hf = CreateFile(argv[1], GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
 hm = CreateFileMapping(hf, NULL, PAGE_READONLY, 0, 0, NULL);
 MapViewOfFile(hm, FILE_MAP_READ, 0, 0, 0);

 DebugBreak();
 return 0;
}

I ran it and chose to map explorer.exe because it was a sufficiently large image file:

C:\MappedFiles\Release>MappedFiles.exe c:\windows\explorer.exe

The dump file was saved and its processing shows this picture:

We clearly see identical regions and double check them from the dump file:

0:000> !address
BaseAddr EndAddr+1 RgnSize Type       State         Protect       Usage
[...]
a60000   d1d000    2bd000  MEM_MAPPED MEM_COMMIT    PAGE_READONLY <unclassified>
d1d000   d20000    3000    MEM_FREE   PAGE_NOACCESS Free
d20000   fdd000    2bd000  MEM_MAPPED MEM_COMMIT    PAGE_READONLY <unclassified>
[…] 

0:000> $$>a< d:\Dump2Picture\mempicture.txt 0`00470000 L?0`007f0000-0`00470000
Writing 380000 bytes

C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)>dump2picture d2p-range.bin d2p-range.bmp 

Dump2Picture version 1.1
Written by Dmitry Vostokov, 2007

d2p-range.bmp
d2p-range.bin
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)>d2p-range.bmp
.shell: Process exited

We see the same partitioning if we juxtapose results:

The application can be downloaded from here: MappedFiles.zip

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Yes, it can. Here’s the Dump2Picture image of a kernel memory dump (3 GB) from a 128 GB system:

Now it’s time to listen to Klaus Schulze album In Blue again.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

OpenTask to offer first 3 volumes of Memory Dump Analysis Anthology in one set:

The set is available exclusively from OpenTask e-Commerce web site starting from June. Individual volumes are also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores worldwide.

Product information:

• Title: Modern Memory Dump and Software Trace Analysis: Volumes 1-3
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24
• Paperback: 1600 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (31 May 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-99-5

Information about individual volumes:

• Volume 1
• Volume 2
• Volume 3

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

This is a revised, edited, cross-referenced and thematically organized volume of selected DumpAnalysis.org blog posts about crash dump analysis and debugging written in July 2009 - January 2010 for software engineers developing and maintaining products on Windows platforms, quality assurance engineers testing software on Windows platforms and technical support and escalation engineers dealing with complex software issues. The fourth volume features:

- 13 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 13 new pattern interaction case studies
- 10 new trace analysis patterns
- 6 new Debugware patterns and case study
- Workaround patterns
- Updated checklist
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3
- New appendixes

Product information:

• Title: Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 4
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24

• Paperback: 410 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (30 March 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-86-5

• Hardcover: 410 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (30 April 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-87-2

Back cover features memory space art image: Internal Process Combustion.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

“Memory dumps are facts.”

I’m very excited to announce that Volume 3 is available in paperback, hardcover and digital editions:

Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 3

Table of Contents

In two weeks paperback edition should also appear on Amazon and other bookstores. Amazon hardcover edition is planned to be available in January 2010.

The amount of information was so voluminous that I had to split the originally planned volume into two. Volume 4 should appear by the middle of February together with Color Supplement for Volumes 1-4. 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I plan to publish a gigabyte. The book cover and data can be found here:

Gigabyte product information

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Some impressions after a day of memory dump analysis.

Memory Space Road to The Ultimate Fix (click to enlarge)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -