如何防止GDB在具有完整磁盘的计算机上启动缓慢

Question

In a docker container with disk full gdb takes a while starting. It takes a very long while starting for large binary & large core dumps.

It is emitting errors like "error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device". Grepping the internet shows that error is associated with yum/rpm.

I just want a quick backtrace from the core dump initially.

How can I prevent gdb doing whatever initialisation it is doing? (presumably loading debug symbols for shared/linked libraries).

Note that while it is loading / being slow Ctrl-C doesn't work. Ctrl-Z (suspend) does work so you can always suspend and kill the command if it is taking too long.

[root@XXX]# gdb -c core.XXX bin/XXX
GNU gdb (GDB) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6.1-94.el7
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu".
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>...
Reading symbols from bin/XXX...
done.
[New LWP 19938]
[New LWP 20044]
.
.
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages index using db5 - No space left on device (28)
error: cannot open Packages database in 
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages database in 
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages database in 
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages database in 
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages database in 
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages database in 
Missing separate debuginfo for /lib64/libm.so.6
Try: yum --enablerepo='*debug*' install /usr/lib/debug/.build-id/72/1c7cc9488efa25f83b48af713ab27dbe48ef3e.debug
error: db5 error(28) from dbenv->open: No space left on device
error: cannot open Packages database in 
.
.

Possibly related but . . .
Tell gdb to skip standard files

Answer 1

These errors don't come from gdb itself, but rather from some library coming from RPM. Some distros, like Fedora, patch gdb to have it look up which libraries might have separate debuginfo that has not been installed.

There's no way to disable this in the gdb you already have. However, you could build your own gdb that does not have this patch applied. This would solve the problem you are seeing.