btraceback(8)

1BTRACEBACK(1)      Network backup, recovery and verification     BTRACEBACK(1)
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NAME

6        btraceback - wrapper script around gdb and bsmtp
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SYNOPSIS

10       btraceback /path/to/binary pid
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DESCRIPTION

14       btraceback is a wrapper shell script around the gdb debugger (or dbx on
15       Solaris systems) and bsmtp, provided for debugging purposes.
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USAGE

19       btraceback is called by the exception handlers of  the  Bacula  daemons
20       during  a  crash.  It can also be called interactively to view the cur‐
21       rent state of the threads belonging to a process, but this is not  rec‐
22       ommended unless you are trying to debug a problem (see below).
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NOTES

26       In  order  to work properly, debugging symbols must be available to the
27       debugger on the system, and gdb, or dbx (on Solaris  systems)  must  be
28       available in the $PATH.
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30       If  the  Director or Storage daemon runs under a non-root uid, you will
31       probably need to be modify the btraceback script to elevate  privileges
32       for the call to gdb/dbx, to ensure it has the proper permissions to de‐
33       bug when called by the daemon.
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35       Although Bacula's use of btraceback within its  exception  handlers  is
36       always  safe, manual or interactive use of btraceback is subject to the
37       same risks than live debugging of any program,  which  means  it  could
38       cause  Bacula  to  crash under rare and abnormal circumstances.  Conse‐
39       quently we do not recommend manual use of btraceback in production  en‐
40       vironments unless it is required for debugging a problem.
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ENVIRONMENT

44       btracback relies on $PATH to find the debugger.
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FILES

48       /usr/libexec/bacula/btraceback
49              The script itself.
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51       /usr/sbin/btraceback
52              symbolic link to /usr/libexec/bacula/btraceback
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54       /etc/bacula/scripts/btraceback.gdb
55              the GDB command batch used to output a stack trace
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AUTHOR

59       This manual page was written by Lucas B. Cohen <lbc@members.fsf.org>
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