KVM(3) Library Functions Manual KVM(3) NAME kvm -- kernel memory interface LIBRARY Kernel Data Access Library (libkvm, -lkvm) DESCRIPTION The kvm library provides a uniform interface for accessing kernel virtual memory images, including live systems and crash dumps. Access to live sys- tems is via mem(4) and kmem(4) while crash dumps can be examined via the core file generated by savecore(8). The interface behaves identically in both cases. Memory can be read and written, kernel symbol addresses can be looked up efficiently, and information about user processes can be gath- ered. The kvm_open() function is first called to obtain a descriptor for all sub- sequent calls. COMPATIBILITY The kvm interface was first introduced in SunOS. A considerable number of programs have been developed that use this interface, making backward com- patibility highly desirable. In most respects, the Sun kvm interface is consistent and clean. Accordingly, the generic portion of the interface (i.e., kvm_open(), kvm_close(), kvm_read(), kvm_write(), and kvm_nlist()) has been incorporated into the BSD interface. Indeed, many kvm applica- tions (i.e., debuggers and statistical monitors) use only this subset of the interface. The process interface was not kept. This is not a portability issue since any code that manipulates processes is inherently machine dependent. Finally, the Sun kvm error reporting semantics are poorly defined. The li- brary can be configured either to print errors to stderr automatically, or to print no error messages at all. In the latter case, the nature of the error cannot be determined. To overcome this, the BSD interface includes a routine, kvm_geterr(3), to return (not print out) the error message corre- sponding to the most recent error condition on the given descriptor. SEE ALSO kvm_close(3), kvm_getargv(3), kvm_getenvv(3), kvm_geterr(3), kvm_get- files(3), kvm_getloadavg(3), kvm_getprocs(3), kvm_getswapinfo(3), kvm_nlist(3), kvm_open(3), kvm_openfiles(3), kvm_read(3), kvm_write(3), kmem(4), mem(4) FreeBSD 5.3 January 29, 2004 KVM(3)
NAME | LIBRARY | DESCRIPTION | COMPATIBILITY | SEE ALSO
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