Chapter 35. Reporting Bugs

Chapter 35. Reporting Bugs
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Jelmer R. Vernooij

The Samba Team

<jelmer@samba.org>

Someone; Tridge or Karl Auer perhaps?

27 June 1997

Table of Contents

Introduction
General info
Debug levels
Internal errors
Attaching to a running process
Patches

Introduction

Please report bugs using - bugzilla.

-Please take the time to read this file before you submit a bug -report. Also, please see if it has changed between releases, as we -may be changing the bug reporting mechanism at some time. -

-Please also do as much as you can yourself to help track down the -bug. Samba is maintained by a dedicated group of people who volunteer -their time, skills and efforts. We receive far more mail about it than -we can possibly answer, so you have a much higher chance of an answer -and a fix if you send us a "developer friendly" bug report that lets -us fix it fast. -

-Do not assume that if you post the bug to the comp.protocols.smb -newsgroup or the mailing list that we will read it. If you suspect that your -problem is not a bug but a configuration problem then it is better to send -it to the Samba mailing list, as there are (at last count) 5000 other users on -that list that may be able to help you. -

-You may also like to look though the recent mailing list archives, -which are conveniently accessible on the Samba web pages -at http://samba.org/samba/. -

General info

-Before submitting a bug report check your config for silly -errors. Look in your log files for obvious messages that tell you that -you've misconfigured something and run testparm to test your config -file for correct syntax. -

-Have you run through the diagnosis? -This is very important. -

-If you include part of a log file with your bug report then be sure to -annotate it with exactly what you were doing on the client at the -time, and exactly what the results were. -

Debug levels

-If the bug has anything to do with Samba behaving incorrectly as a -server (like refusing to open a file) then the log files will probably -be very useful. Depending on the problem a log level of between 3 and -10 showing the problem may be appropriate. A higher level gives more -detail, but may use too much disk space. -

-To set the debug level use the log level in your -smb.conf. You may also find it useful to set the log -level higher for just one machine and keep separate logs for each machine. -To do this use: -

-log level = 10
-log file = /usr/local/samba/lib/log.%m
-include = /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.%m
-

-then create a file -/usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.machine where -machine is the name of the client you wish to debug. In that file -put any smb.conf commands you want, for example -log level may be useful. This also allows you to -experiment with different security systems, protocol levels etc on just -one machine. -

-The smb.conf entry log level -is synonymous with the parameter debuglevel that has -been used in older versions of Samba and is being retained for backwards -compatibility of smb.conf files. -

-As the log level value is increased you will record -a significantly increasing level of debugging information. For most -debugging operations you may not need a setting higher than -3. Nearly -all bugs can be tracked at a setting of 10, but be -prepared for a VERY large volume of log data. -

Internal errors

-If you get a INTERNAL ERROR message in your log files -it means that Samba got an unexpected signal while running. It is probably a -segmentation fault and almost certainly means a bug in Samba (unless -you have faulty hardware or system software). -

-If the message came from smbd then it will probably be accompanied by -a message which details the last SMB message received by smbd. This -info is often very useful in tracking down the problem so please -include it in your bug report. -

-You should also detail how to reproduce the problem, if -possible. Please make this reasonably detailed. -

-You may also find that a core file appeared in a corefiles -subdirectory of the directory where you keep your samba log -files. This file is the most useful tool for tracking down the bug. To -use it you do this: -

-	$ gdb smbd core
-

-adding appropriate paths to smbd and core so gdb can find them. If you -don't have gdb then try dbx. Then within the debugger -use the command where to give a stack trace of where the -problem occurred. Include this in your report. -

-If you know any assembly language then do a -disass of the routine -where the problem occurred (if its in a library routine then -disassemble the routine that called it) and try to work out exactly -where the problem is by looking at the surrounding code. Even if you -don't know assembly, including this info in the bug report can be -useful. -

Attaching to a running process

-Unfortunately some unixes (in particular some recent linux kernels) -refuse to dump a core file if the task has changed uid (which smbd -does often). To debug with this sort of system you could try to attach -to the running process using -gdb smbd PID where you get -PID from smbstatus. -Then use c to continue and try to cause the core dump -using the client. The debugger should catch the fault and tell you -where it occurred. -

Patches

-The best sort of bug report is one that includes a fix! If you send us -patches please use diff -u format if your version of -diff supports it, otherwise use diff -c4. Make sure -you do the diff against a clean version of the source and let me know -exactly what version you used. -

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