VProbes

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  • 1.  Using WinDbg symbol files

    Posted Mar 06, 2009 02:20 PM

    1. Install WinDbg inside the guest. You will need to generate symbol files from the guest since this is the Windows version you will be hooking vprobes to.

    2. Create a local or remote symbol server per Debugging Applications for Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Windows Part I, Chapter 2 and run the following command from the WinDbg folder:

    cscript ossyms2.0.js \\symbols\path
    

    This will take some time to complete and you should end up with a couple gigs of modules and their PDBs.

    3. Run WinDbg in local kernel debugging mode on the guest and issue the following command, replacing <modulename> with an actual module name:

    x <modulename>!*
    

    4. Save the output from WinDbg: Edit &gt; Write Window Text to File

    5. Place the saved file in the guest datastore directory.

    6. Stop the guest.

    7. Edit the VMX file to include

    vprobe.enable = "TRUE"
    vprobe.guestSyms = "symbolFile.TXT"
    

    8. Start the guest.

    9. Issue the vprobeListProbes command to view your imported events.

    The attached probes.txt file contains all my events with the NT module imported. nt.txt is the file I am importing with vprobe.guestSyms. I am not sure if this will be a problem but the event names look like:

    
    GUEST:t!MiShutdownSystem*
    
    

    instead of

    
    GUEST:nt!MiShutdownSystem*
    
    

    Any insight on this?

    UPDATE FROM VMWARE:

    This looks like an issue with our internal parsing logic for windbg-style symbol text files. Try adding a "0`" (w/o the double quotes) to each of the lines and you should see the full, intact probe names.

    I will check this out and post my results...



  • 2.  RE: Using WinDbg symbol files

    Posted May 29, 2009 07:14 PM

    Modifying this:

    808e5d9a nt!IopFreeDCB = <no type information>
    

    to this:

    0`808e5d9a nt!IopFreeDCB = <no type information>
    

    does list the probe names correctly.



  • 3.  RE: Using WinDbg symbol files

    Posted Apr 14, 2010 03:16 AM

    Hello! I am a studnet from China, and I do not know how to do the step three you said to use WinDbg sumbol files .Can you make it more clear please?

    Thank you!



  • 4.  RE: Using WinDbg symbol files

    Posted Apr 26, 2010 01:27 PM

    Hi.

    Install WinDbg on the guest. Then once you know which DLL you want the symbols for run WinDbg and type

    x ntdll!*

    into WinDbg (replacing ntdll with the dll you want the symbols for). Then copy and paste the output into a text file.