Software Diagnostics Library

APIs “govern the world.”

John Selden, Table Talk

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

New cartoon from Narasimha Vedala (click on it to enlarge):

Revolution and carnage imminent at Dr. Debugalov’s bug farm…

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Here is the draft front cover for the forthcoming Windows Debugging Notebook:

It is based on Debugging Book Stack concept.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Instead of providing the list of recommended books on debugging topics here is the picture that shows most of them that I own:

Hope you recognize books that you own and/or read too. Some of them were reviewed by me already:

Advanced Windows Debugging

Debugging by Thinking: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Microsoft Windows Internals: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000

Why Programs Fail: A Guide to Systematic Debugging

and more reviews will come soon.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

In June I reported passing 15,000 visits / month mark and today from Google Analytics I see the passing of 20,000 visits / month mark:

At the time of this writing Google Analytics reports the higher number of visits than StatPress Wordpress plugin (14,653 visits / month) but this is probably due to the fact that Analytics counts visits for Russian version, portal and forum too. At the same time StatPress shows more page views for English blog alone than Analytics and the overall projected page views number is close to 1,000,000 / year (not including feeds):

One thing is certain is that the number of visitors has doubled since the beginning of this year. 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

CDA Patterns translated by Heejune Kim also appear on the new MSDN blog called !analyze -v (Korean version).

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“There are many rare” crashes “in the World, which Fortune never brings to Light” again.

Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Previously I introduced Hooked Functions pattern where I used !chkimg WinDbg command and today after accidentally discovering yet another patched DLL module in one process I created this simple command to check all modules:

!for_each_module !chkimg -lo 50 -d !${@#ModuleName} -v

0:000:x86> !for_each_module !chkimg -lo 50 -d !${@#ModuleName} -v
[...]
Scanning section:    .text
Size: 74627
Range to scan: 71c01000-71c13383
71c02430-71c02434  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSASend
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 cb db 1c 0d ]
71c0279b-71c0279f  5 bytes - WS2_32!select (+0x36b)
[ 6a 14 68 58 28:e9 60 d8 15 0d ]
71c0290e-71c02912  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSASendTo (+0x173)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 ed d6 1b 0d ]
71c02cb2-71c02cb6  5 bytes - WS2_32!closesocket (+0x3a4)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 49 d3 19 0d ]
71c02e12-71c02e16  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAIoctl (+0x160)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 e9 d1 1e 0d ]
71c02ec2-71c02ec6  5 bytes - WS2_32!send (+0xb0)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 39 d1 14 0d ]
71c02f7f-71c02f83  5 bytes - WS2_32!recv (+0xbd)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 7c d0 17 0d ]
71c03c04-71c03c08  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAGetOverlappedResult (+0xc85)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 f7 c3 1f 0d ]
71c03c75-71c03c79  5 bytes - WS2_32!recvfrom (+0x71)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 86 c3 16 0d ]
71c03d14-71c03d18  5 bytes - WS2_32!sendto (+0x9f)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 e7 c2 13 0d ]
71c03da8-71c03dac  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSACleanup (+0x94)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 53 c2 25 0d ]
71c03f38-71c03f3c  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSASocketW (+0x190)
[ 6a 20 68 08 40:e9 c3 c0 11 0d ]
71c0446a-71c0446e  5 bytes - WS2_32!connect (+0x532)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 91 bb 18 0d ]
71c04f3b-71c04f3f  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAStartup (+0xad1)
[ 6a 14 68 60 50:e9 c0 b0 29 0d ]
71c06162-71c06166  5 bytes - WS2_32!shutdown (+0x1227)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 99 9e 12 0d ]
71c069e9-71c069ed  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSALookupServiceBeginW (+0x887)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 12 96 0f 0d ]
71c06c91-71c06c95  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSALookupServiceNextW (+0x2a8)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 6a 93 10 0d ]
71c06ecd-71c06ed1  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSALookupServiceEnd (+0x23c)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 2e 91 0e 0d ]
71c090be-71c090c2  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAEventSelect (+0x21f1)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 3d 6f 20 0d ]
71c09129-71c0912d  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSACreateEvent (+0x6b)
[ 33 c0 50 50 6a:e9 d2 6e 22 0d ]
71c0938e-71c09392  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSACloseEvent (+0x265)
[ 6a 0c 68 c8 93:e9 6d 6c 24 0d ]
71c093d9-71c093dd  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAWaitForMultipleEvents (+0x4b)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 22 6c 1a 0d ]
71c093ea-71c093ee  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAEnumNetworkEvents (+0x11)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 11 6c 21 0d ]
71c09480-71c09484  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSARecv (+0x96)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 7b 6b 1d 0d ]
71c0eecb-71c0eecf  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSACancelAsyncRequest (+0x5a4b)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 30 11 26 0d ]
71c10d39-71c10d3d  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAAsyncSelect (+0x1e6e)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 c2 f2 26 0d ]
71c10ee3-71c10ee7  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAConnect (+0x1aa)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 18 f1 22 0d ]
71c10f9f-71c10fa3  5 bytes - WS2_32!WSAAccept (+0xbc)
[ 8b ff 55 8b ec:e9 5c f0 27 0d ]
Total bytes compared: 74627(100%)
Number of errors: 140
140 errors : !WS2_32 (71c02430-71c10fa3)
[...]

CMDTREE.TXT was also updated with this command.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“Some” processes “are very busy, and yet do nothing.”

Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Thanks to Roberto Farah who blogged about .cmdtree command I was able to create the first version of cmdtree.txt for Crash Dump Analysis Checklist to include common commands that I use. It can be found here:

CMDTREE.TXT for .cmdtree WinDbg command

The link to the file was also added to:

http://www.windbg.org/

Here is the screenshot of it:

It is useful for complex commands including command sequences and scripts. You can also include special guidelines and reminders as well. In the latter cases you can specify empty command or output something you prefer with .echo, for example command templates to fill manually.

This seems to be similar to EasyDbg. 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“But perhaps the” OS “is suspended on the” finger “of some” developer.

Anton Chekhov, Notebook

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“Think before you” debug!

Pythagoras, Teachings

This bugtation is also illustrated graphically here:

Bugtations: a semiotic approach

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Now a bit of theory behind bugtations. If you know about semiotics you will instantly recognize bugtations as paradigmatic substitutions in quotations (syntagmatic axis). This is better illustrated on the following picture adopted from Daniel Chandler’s book Semiotics, The Basics (2nd ed., figure 3.1, page 84) using this simple bugtation created from Pythagoras famous quotation:

All bugtations are featured here:

http://www.dumpanalysis.org/Bugtations 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“The only way to read” code “without being bored is to” browse “it at random and, having found something that interests you, close the” browser “and meditate.”

Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne, Mes écarts

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“Crash dumps are fossils” 

Here is the draft TOC for the previously announced book Crash Dump Analysis for System Administrators and Support Engineers (Windows Edition) which I’m co-authoring with Thomas Monahan, a Lead Escalation Engineer at Citrix Systems:

Table of Contents

 - Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Another pattern that logically flows from Tool Chain is called Tool Box. Their principal difference is that the former launches subordinated tools in a sequence to reach the common goal and the latter is the tool that launches other tools in any sequence independently:

Often tool boxes are implemented as toolbars. Another boundary example is the so called resource kit tools where an HTML page or taskbar menu serves the role of tool box.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Opentask plans to publish full-color children’s book series called “Baby Turing”:

• Title: Baby Turing
• Authors: Alexandra Vostokova, Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (01 November 2008)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 21.6
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-26-1
• Paperback: 16 pages

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Comments “are not” code.

Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“You can take better care of your” code “than another can.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

“One can best feel in dealing with” systems “how primitive” debugging “still is.”

Albert Einstein, Communication to Leó Szilárd

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -