August 31, 2015

The Guide to Find Linux Kernel Debuginfo Package

A repeat task to Linux core dump analysis is to find the corresponding kernel debuginfo package. When you extract the kernel version from the memory, the first question is which release the kernel is at. Then where to find the kernel debuginfo package that has the symbols and maybe also the source package. The most popular commercial Linux distributions are RHEL, SLES, Ubuntu and their relatives, so here is the guide to find those packages.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu List of Releases, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
Ubuntu Releases and Kernel Versions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubuntu_releases#Table_of_versions
debuginfo online repository: http://ddebs.ubuntu.com/pool/main/l/linux/
package name:

kernel: linux-image
symbol: linux-image-*-dbgsym
source: linux-source

extract package

    ar -x linux-image-3.2.0-41-generic-dbgsym_3.2.0-41.66_amd64.ddeb

Debian

Add support for creating a “debuginfo” package
e.g. https://packages.debian.org/jessie/linux-image-3.16.0-4-amd64-dbg

RHEL

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Release Dates, https://access.redhat.com/articles/3078
CentOS debug packages are compatible with Redhat
package online repository: http://vault.centos.org/
debuginfo online repository: http://debuginfo.centos.org/

kernel: kernel
source: kernel-debuginfo-common
symbol: kernel-debuginfo

extract package

    rpm2cpio kernel-2.6.32-573.el6.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv

Oracle UEK (Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel)

package online repository: http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/
debuginfo online repository: https://oss.oracle.com/ol6/debuginfo/

More Relatives

SLES

SLES kernel releases, https://wiki.novell.com/index.php/Kernel_versions
SLES How to add the catalog for debuginfo packages

zypper search -s 'kernel-default'
zypper install --download-only --oldpackage kernel-default-debuginfo-3.0.101-0.15.1
# debuginfo package needs the kernel binary in SLES
zypper install --download-only --oldpackage kernel-default-base-3.0.101-0.15.1
# find the rpm in /var/cache/zypp/packages

I’ve not yet found an open free online repository for SLES…