Re: [Xen-users] What is the difference between "xen", "xen-syms" and "xen-*-dbg" files?

[Ian Campbell <ian.campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2015-11-17 at 09:34 +0800, Nan Xiao wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Since I am a newbie of Xen, this may be a dumb question. On my SuSE
> Xen, I find the following
> 4 "Xen" files:
> 
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root rootÂÂÂ881967 Oct 27 05:46 xen-4.5.1_10-1.gz
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16673080 Oct 27 05:46 xen-syms-4.5.1_10-1
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root rootÂÂÂ893428 Oct 27 05:45 xen-dbg-4.5.1_10-1.gz
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16124144 Oct 27 05:45 xen-syms-dbg-4.5.1_10-1
> 
> Could anyone give a detailed explanation of the functions and
> differences about the 4 files?

TL;DR: Use xen-04.5.1_1-1.gz unless someone asks you to do otherwise or you
are tracking down a bug.

xen.gz is the main/regular/normal release build of the Xen binary (e.g. the
thing which you can boot). This is the thing you would boot on a regular
production Xen system.

xen-syms.gz is the unstripped version of xen.gz, i.e. with all the ELF
debug information present. You can e.g. run gdb on it to disassemble things
if you are tracking down a bug. This image is not bootable.

The -dbg variants are not something which upstream produces, but I would
assume that they are build with the debug=y, which means they will contain
extra ASSERT statements and other things which aid debugging possibly at
the expense of performance. Release builds (xen.gz et al) are build with
debug=n. Like the release builds the xen-*-dbg ones come in the bootable
(xen-dbg.gz) and xen-syms-dbg.gz variants, with the same distinction (the
former is bootable, the latter is for running gdb on)

HTH

Ian.


> I try to google, but can't find the answers.
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Best Regards
> Nan Xiao
> 
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