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Kernel Driver Debugging and Patching

1 post · Dec 2012

What this trail covers

Spotify's infrastructure team actively debugs and patches kernel drivers to resolve hardware compatibility issues, ensuring the stability and reliability of their server provisioning and data center operations. This involves deep dives into kernel source code, binary searching for problematic changes, and applying targeted fixes to custom kernels.

All Spotify trails
  1. Finding the right needle in the kernel haystackThis post details the process of debugging a segfault in the `mpt2sas` driver on a new Dell PowerEdge C5220 server when using Debian GNU/Linux. The issue was traced to a significant difference between the Debian Squeeze kernel's driver (based on Linux 2.6.32) and the RHEL6 kernel's driver (backported from Linux 3.4). The author successfully identified a specific 7-line patch ([ebda4d38df542e1ff4747c4daadfc7da250b4fa6](http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=ebda4d38df542e1ff4747c4daadfc7da250b4fa6)) in the later driver that resolved the segfault. This patch was then applied to the Debian kernel, enabling the use of the new hardware.