How to make lldb ignore EXC_BAD_ACCESS exception? - macos

Question

I am writing a program on Mac OSX depending on the sigaction/sa_handler mechanism. Run a code snippet from user and get ready to catch signals/exceptions at any time. The program works fine, but the problem is I can't debug it with lldb. lldb seems not being able to ignore any exceptions even I set
proc hand -p true -s false SIGSEGV
proc hand -p true -s false SIGBUS
The control flow stops at the instruction that triggers the exception and does not jump to the sa_handler I installed earlier even I tried command c. The output was:
Process 764 stopped
* thread #2: tid = 0xf140, 0x00000001000b8000, stop reason = EXC_BAD_ACCESS (code=2, address=0x1000b8000)
How do I make lldb ignore the exception/signal and let the sa_handler of the program do its work?
EDIT: sample code
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>
static void handler(int signo, siginfo_t *sigaction, void *context)
{
printf("in handler.\n");
signal(signo, SIG_DFL);
}
static void gen_exception()
{
printf("gen_exception in.\n");
*(int *)0 = 0;
printf("gen_exception out.\n");
}
void *gen_exception_thread(void *parg)
{
gen_exception();
return 0;
}
int main()
{
struct sigaction sa;
sa.sa_sigaction = handler;
sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
sa.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
if(sigaction(/*SIGBUS*/SIGSEGV, &sa, NULL) == -1) {
printf("sigaction fails.\n");
return 0;
}
pthread_t id;
pthread_create(&id, NULL, gen_exception_thread, NULL);
pthread_join(id, NULL);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

I needed this in a recent project, so I just built my own LLDB. I patched a line in tools/debugserver/source/MacOSX/MachTask.mm from
err = ::task_set_exception_ports (task, m_exc_port_info.mask, m_exception_port, EXCEPTION_DEFAULT | MACH_EXCEPTION_CODES, THREAD_STATE_NONE);
to
err = ::task_set_exception_ports (task, m_exc_port_info.mask & ~EXC_MASK_BAD_ACCESS, m_exception_port, EXCEPTION_DEFAULT | MACH_EXCEPTION_CODES, THREAD_STATE_NONE);
which causes the debugserver to be unable to catch EXC_BAD_ACCESS exceptions. Now, my custom LLDB works just fine: it still catches SIGSEGV and SIGBUS but no longer enters a silly infinite loop when faced with EXC_BAD_ACCESS. Setting process handle options on the previously-fatal signals works fine too, and I can now debug SEGV handlers with impunity.
Apple really ought to make this an option in LLDB...seems like a really easy fix for them.

Answer 2

This is a long-standing bug in the debugger interface in Mac OS X (gdb had the same problem...) If you have a developer account, please file a bug with http://bugreport.apple.com. So few people actually use SIGSEGV handlers that the problem never gets any attention from the kernel folks, so more bugs is good...

Answer 3

We can do it easily. Just add this code.
#include <mach/task.h>
#include <mach/mach_init.h>
#include <mach/mach_port.h>
int ret = task_set_exception_ports(
mach_task_self(),
EXC_MASK_BAD_ACCESS,
MACH_PORT_NULL,//m_exception_port,
EXCEPTION_DEFAULT,
0);
Don't forget to do this
proc hand -p true -s false SIGSEGV
proc hand -p true -s false SIGBUS
Full code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <mach/task.h>
#include <mach/mach_init.h>
#include <mach/mach_port.h>
static void handler(int signo, siginfo_t *sigaction, void *context)
{
printf("in handler.\n");
signal(signo, SIG_DFL);
}
static void gen_exception()
{
printf("gen_exception in.\n");
*(int *)0 = 0;
printf("gen_exception out.\n");
}
void *gen_exception_thread(void *parg)
{
gen_exception();
return 0;
}
int main()
{
task_set_exception_ports(
mach_task_self(),
EXC_MASK_BAD_ACCESS,
MACH_PORT_NULL,//m_exception_port,
EXCEPTION_DEFAULT,
0);
struct sigaction sa;
sa.sa_sigaction = handler;
sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
sa.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
if(sigaction(/*SIGBUS*/SIGSEGV, &sa, NULL) == -1) {
printf("sigaction fails.\n");
return 0;
}
pthread_t id;
pthread_create(&id, NULL, gen_exception_thread, NULL);
pthread_join(id, NULL);
return 0;
}
Refer to (Chinese article): https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/33542591

Answer 4

A little bit of example code can make a question like this a lot easier to answer ... I've never used the sigaction API before but I threw this together -
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void segv_handler (int in)
{
puts ("in segv_handler()");
}
void sigbus_handler (int in)
{
puts ("in sigbus_handler()");
}
int main ()
{
struct sigaction action;
action.sa_mask = 0;
action.sa_flags = 0;
action.sa_handler = segv_handler;
sigaction (SIGSEGV, &action, NULL);
action.sa_handler = sigbus_handler;
sigaction (SIGBUS, &action, NULL);
puts ("about to send SIGSEGV signal from main()");
kill (getpid(), SIGSEGV);
puts ("about to send SIGBUS signal from main()");
kill (getpid(), SIGBUS);
puts ("exiting main()");
}
% lldb a.out
(lldb) br s -n main
(lldb) r
(lldb) pr h -p true -s false SIGSEGV SIGBUS
(lldb) c
Process 54743 resuming
about to send SIGSEGV signal from main()
Process 54743 stopped and restarted: thread 1 received signal: SIGSEGV
in segv_handler()
about to send SIGBUS signal from main()
Process 54743 stopped and restarted: thread 1 received signal: SIGBUS
in sigbus_handler()
exiting main()
Process 54743 exited with status = 0 (0x00000000)
(lldb)
Everything looks like it's working correctly here. If I'd added -n false to the process handle arguments, lldb wouldn't have printed the lines about Process .. stopped and restarted.
Note that these signal settings do not persist across process executions. So if you're starting your debug session over (r once you've already started the process once), you'll need to re-set these. You may want to create a command alias shortcut and put it in your ~/.lldbinit file so you can set the process handling the way you prefer with a short cmd.