Patterson & Sheridan LLP
Detecting X86 CPU register corruption from kernel crash dumps
Discovering a hardware failure in a processor is disclosed. When an operating system or application fails, a function containing the instruction that failed along with the register set of the CPU at the failure is recorded. The function is analyzed into its basic blocks. The failing instruction, the failing basic block, the definitions that reach the failing instruction, and the CPU register set at the failure provide information to determine whether the failure was caused by hardware or software. If, after a complete search of the definitions reaching the failing instruction, the search discovers a first definition defining the failing instruction and a second definition defining the first definition such that the second definition reaches the failing instruction and the first definition assigns a register value that does not match a register value in the failing instruction, then a hardware failure is the cause of the crash.
VMware, Inc.
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Sowgandh Sunil Yujie Ravi Hariprakash
Gadi Chen Parimi Govindarajalu