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Conference turris::languages

Title:Languages
Notice:Speaking In Tongues
Moderator:TLE::TOKLAS::FELDMAN
Created:Sat Jan 25 1986
Last Modified:Wed May 21 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:394
Total number of notes:2683

226.0. "analyse/process with Ada?" by COMICS::DEMORGAN (Richard De Morgan, UK CSC/CS) Tue Mar 21 1989 05:45

    I have had this in the Ada notesfile, but so far no response. Does
    anybody here have any ideas - any input gratefully received.

    Groan!!! we have one of those customers who is writing a large program
    for the Ministry of Defence and cannot let us see the program. They
    say it gives an access violation.
    
    It was run under VMS V5.0-2 and we have a process dump 10,440 blocks
    long. When we attempt to analyse it, we get different output depending
    on which analyser we use and whether the /full switch is on. In
    no case do we get transferred to the debugger. Results are below:
    
    A5.0	without /full: prints out each line of output twice,
    		claims there was a reserved operand fault followed by
    		an access violation when trying to dispatch to an
    		exception handler.
    
    		with /full: gives each line once, does not indicate
    		any error, all register contents are different.
    
    		In both cases stack pointers are in P0 space.
    
    V5.1	without /full: exactly as A5.0.
    
    		with /full:  prints out two sets of registers with contents
    		as per the two A5.0 cases.
    
    Is there something about Ada programs that stops this working, or
    does analyse/process just not work? The /full output shows high
    AST count/limit (18/20) and enqueue count/limit (599/600).
    
    Any information appreciated.
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
226.1ULTRA::WRAYJohn Wray, Secure Systems DevelopmentTue Mar 21 1989 14:434
    Have you tried VMSNOTES - after all, ANALYZE/PROCESS is a VMS
    component...

    John
226.2ReproducibleBMT::BOWERSCount Zero InterruptWed Mar 29 1989 17:401
    Can they reproduce the error in a non-classified environment?
226.3GIDDAY::GILLINGSHis Bach is worse than his BytesThu May 18 1989 00:5313
      ANALYZE/PROCESS is a bit tricky if you try to analyze a dump on a
    machine other than the one which produced the crash. There are some
    SYSGEN parameters which must match (PIOPAGES and CTLPAGES for starters,
    probably several others as well). Another thing that may be wrong is
    which debugger you are using. If it is MP-DEBUG, I think you may have
    to "$ DEFINE DBG$PROCESS NONE" (this may be why you're seeing double
    output).
      I can't understand why they won't show you the program but are
    prepared to give you a process dump. The process dump itself is, in
    effect, an image file with all the DZRO pages expanded and all
    shareable images copied in. A hacker could derive a lot of information
    about the program from the dump.
    				John Gillings, Sydney CSC
226.4curiouser and curiouserCOMICS::DEMORGANRichard De Morgan, UK CSC/CSFri May 19 1989 11:5712
    Re .3: Defining DBG$PROCESS NONE does not stop the double output.
    I wouldn't have guessed about the SYSGEN parameters. However, I
    did manage to read the dumps (from a V5.0-1 system) on a V4.7 analyser!
    5 of them crashed on exactly the same instruction, but we're no
    wiser as to why this only happens when both processors are running.
    Somebody with security clearance for the site is going there on monday,
    so maybe we'll get to the bottom of it. The manifestation of the
    accvio is that it tries to do an INSQUE on a header with both longwords
    zero - then gets trapped by PCA$COLLECTOR's primary handler which
    resignals it - it then accvios on a REMQUE on the same faulty header.
    But - the user claims he hasn't got PCA Collector - but he's certainly
    got PCA$COLLECTOR_MAIN in the global symbol table.