Re: newbie question : compiling kernel and debug info.

[fche at redhat dot com (Frank Ch. Eigler)]

Om Narasimhan <Om.Narasimhan@Sun.COM> writes:

> When I started using systemtap, I had tried to compile my kernel and
> use systemtap (binary -- came with fedora) on it. But I was not very
> successful (I used to get a number of symbol mismatch/function not
> found ..etc errors) and finally I started using systemtap with Fedora
> kernel. So far, it has worked fine.

Glad to hear.

> Some questions on compiling custom kernels
> 1. Should I compile and replace my existing systemtap with a newer
> version in order to use it for a custom-compiled kernel? (Is there any
> relation between system tap binary and kernel on which it is used?)

Any given systemtap binary should work fine with a range of kernels.
The runtime side (kernel module source code) is more kernel-sensitive,
but we have some mechanisms in place to make them work on a range
also.

> 2. How to compile modules with debuginfo?

If the main kernel has debugging information, the modules will too,
since they are compiled the same way.

- FChE