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| 1 | +.\" $NetBSD: kvm.3,v 1.13 2011/09/13 08:53:15 wiz Exp $ |
| 2 | +.\" |
| 3 | +.\" Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 |
| 4 | +.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. |
| 5 | +.\" |
| 6 | +.\" This code is derived from software developed by the Computer Systems |
| 7 | +.\" Engineering group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory under DARPA contract |
| 8 | +.\" BG 91-66 and contributed to Berkeley. |
| 9 | +.\" |
| 10 | +.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without |
| 11 | +.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions |
| 12 | +.\" are met: |
| 13 | +.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright |
| 14 | +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. |
| 15 | +.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright |
| 16 | +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the |
| 17 | +.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. |
| 18 | +.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors |
| 19 | +.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software |
| 20 | +.\" without specific prior written permission. |
| 21 | +.\" |
| 22 | +.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND |
| 23 | +.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE |
| 24 | +.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE |
| 25 | +.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE |
| 26 | +.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL |
| 27 | +.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS |
| 28 | +.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) |
| 29 | +.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT |
| 30 | +.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY |
| 31 | +.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF |
| 32 | +.\" SUCH DAMAGE. |
| 33 | +.\" |
| 34 | +.\" @(#)kvm.3 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 |
| 35 | +.\" |
| 36 | +.Dd September 14, 2011 |
| 37 | +.Dt KVM 3 |
| 38 | +.Os |
| 39 | +.Sh NAME |
| 40 | +.Nm kvm |
| 41 | +.Nd kernel memory interface |
| 42 | +.Sh LIBRARY |
| 43 | +.Lb libkvm |
| 44 | +.Sh DESCRIPTION |
| 45 | +The |
| 46 | +.Nm |
| 47 | +library provides a uniform interface for accessing kernel virtual memory |
| 48 | +images, including live systems and crash dumps. |
| 49 | +Access to live systems is via |
| 50 | +.Pa /dev/mem |
| 51 | +while crash dumps can be examined via the core file generated by |
| 52 | +.Xr savecore 8 . |
| 53 | +The interface behaves identically in both cases. |
| 54 | +Memory can be read and written, kernel symbol addresses can be |
| 55 | +looked up efficiently, and information about user processes can |
| 56 | +be gathered. |
| 57 | +.Pp |
| 58 | +.Fn kvm_open |
| 59 | +is first called to obtain a descriptor for all subsequent calls. |
| 60 | +.Sh FILES |
| 61 | +.Bl -tag -width /dev/mem -compact |
| 62 | +.It Pa /dev/mem |
| 63 | +interface to physical memory |
| 64 | +.El |
| 65 | +.Sh COMPATIBILITY |
| 66 | +The kvm interface was first introduced in SunOS. |
| 67 | +A considerable number of programs have been developed that use this |
| 68 | +interface, making backward compatibility highly desirable. |
| 69 | +In most respects, the Sun kvm interface is consistent and clean. |
| 70 | +Accordingly, the generic portion of the interface (i.e., |
| 71 | +.Fn kvm_open , |
| 72 | +.Fn kvm_close , |
| 73 | +.Fn kvm_read , |
| 74 | +.Fn kvm_write , |
| 75 | +and |
| 76 | +.Fn kvm_nlist ) |
| 77 | +has been incorporated into the |
| 78 | +.Bx |
| 79 | +interface. |
| 80 | +Indeed, many kvm applications (i.e., debuggers and statistical monitors) |
| 81 | +use only this subset of the interface. |
| 82 | +.Pp |
| 83 | +The process interface was not kept. |
| 84 | +This is not a portability issue since any code that manipulates |
| 85 | +processes is inherently machine dependent. |
| 86 | +.Pp |
| 87 | +Finally, the Sun kvm error reporting semantics are poorly defined. |
| 88 | +The library can be configured either to print errors to stderr automatically, |
| 89 | +or to print no error messages at all. |
| 90 | +In the latter case, the nature of the error cannot be determined. |
| 91 | +To overcome this, the |
| 92 | +.Bx |
| 93 | +interface includes a routine, |
| 94 | +.Xr kvm_geterr 3 , |
| 95 | +to return (not print out) the error message corresponding to the most |
| 96 | +recent error condition on the given descriptor. |
| 97 | +.Sh SEE ALSO |
| 98 | +.Xr kvm_close 3 , |
| 99 | +.Xr kvm_getargv 3 , |
| 100 | +.Xr kvm_getenvv 3 , |
| 101 | +.Xr kvm_geterr 3 , |
| 102 | +.Xr kvm_getkernelname 3 , |
| 103 | +.Xr kvm_getloadavg 3 , |
| 104 | +.Xr kvm_getlwps 3 , |
| 105 | +.Xr kvm_getprocs 3 , |
| 106 | +.Xr kvm_nlist 3 , |
| 107 | +.Xr kvm_open 3 , |
| 108 | +.Xr kvm_openfiles 3 , |
| 109 | +.Xr kvm_read 3 , |
| 110 | +.Xr kvm_write 3 |
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