64-bit program segmentation fault on HP-UX PA RISC

Question

I am using 3 HP-UX PA RISC machines for testing. My binary is failing on one PA RISC machine where as others it working. Note that, even though binary is executed with version check i.e. it just print version and exit and don't perform any other operation , still binary is giving segmentation fault. what could be probable reason for Segmentation fault. It is important to me to find out root cause of the failure on one box. As program is working on 2 HP-UX, it seems that it is environment issue?

I tried to copy same piece of code (i.e. declare variables, print version and exit) in test program and build with same compilation options but it is working. Here is gdb output for the program.

$ gdb prg_us
Detected 64-bit executable.
Invoking /opt/langtools/bin/gdb64.
HP gdb 5.4.0 for PA-RISC 2.0 (wide), HP-UX 11.00
and target hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.00.
Copyright 1986 - 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Wildebeest 5.4.0 (based on GDB) is covered by the
GNU General Public License. Type "show copying" to see the conditions to
change it and/or distribute copies. Type "show warranty" for warranty/support.
..
(gdb) b  5573
Breakpoint 1 at 0x4000000000259e04: file pmgreader.c, line 5573 from /tmp/test/prg_us.
(gdb) r -v
Starting program: /tmp/test/prg_us -v

Breakpoint 1, main (argc=2, argv=0x800003ffbfff05f8) at pmgreader.c:5573
5573       if (argc ==2 && strcmp (argv[1], "-v") == 0)
Current language:  auto; currently c++
(gdb) n
5575           printf ("%s", VER);
(gdb) n
5576           exit(0);
(gdb) n

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault
  si_code: 0 - SEGV_UNKNOWN - Unknown Error.
0x800003ffbfb9e130 in real_free+0x480 () from /lib/pa20_64/libc.2
(gdb)

What should be probable cause? why it is working on one and not on another?

You should post some of the relevant code, e.g. from the start of main up to a few lines beyond the problem line. — Paul R, Mar 28 '11 at 11:02
@Paul : Actual code is bigger one. but, in this case, at the start of main function, we are checking whether prog is called with -v argument, if yes, print VER and exit. This works in all unix flavors, including HP-UX PA RISC but, at one HP-UX PA RISC machine it is failing. — Sach, Mar 28 '11 at 11:26
You need a stack trace. That will tell you the answer. Basically, if you get a graphical debugger this will all become much easier. You probably already have one installed. If not, Emacs has one which just about does the job. — Ben, Apr 02 '11 at 12:54

Michael Burr · Answer 1 · 2011-03-28T16:56:18.617

Just a long shot - are you including both stdio.h and stdlib.h so the prototypes for printf() and exit() are known to the compiler?

Actually, after a bit more thought (and noticing that C++ is in the mix), you may have some static object initialization causing problems (possibly corrupting the heap?).

Unfortunately, it looks like valgrind is not supported on PA-RISC - is there some similar tool on PA-RISC you can run? If not, it might be worthwhile running valgrind on an x64 build of your program if it's not too difficult to set that up.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 29 '11 at 07:38

Michael Burr already hinted at the problem: it's a global object.

Notice that the crash is from a free function. That indicates a memory deallocation, and in turn a destructor. This makes sense given the context: global destructors run after exit(0). A stack trace will show more detail.

64-bit program segmentation fault on HP-UX PA RISC

2 Answers2