[comp.unix.questions] Problems with dbx in SunOS 4.0.1

mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) (06/12/89)

I'm running SunOS 4.0.1 on my 3/60.  When I try to run dbx on a large
program (the executable is 319K), I get messages like

	Running: icc
	can't write to process (address 0xec5be44)
	(perhaps you are already debugging this file?)

and a core dump.

I read the manual section about "Debugging Processes that Fork,"
which says that the kernel won't allow ptrace(2) to write to the
process while two processes share the same text space.  Thus a
sleep(2) of a few seconds should be placed after the fork to allow
the subprocess time to exec a new process and get out of the way.

My program does fork, and I tried this, but it was no help.  I also
tried commenting out the fork (actually vfork) call, but I got the
same results.  I don't even have to set a breakpoint for this to happen.

If anyone has found a workaround for this or has any other insights, I'd
appreciate hearing them.  Thanks in advance.

Mark McWiggins
Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek)
(206) 455-9935
uunet!intek01!mark