How to build a MariaDB server that contains debug information

Instructions on how to build a mysqld that contains all the information we need to fix the problem: (A more detailed explanation can be found here.)

Note: this text has been extracted into a separate article from Reporting bugs, see its full history there.

• Add the --core-file option to your /.my.cnf or /etc/my.cnf file under the [mysqld] tag.
• Get the latest MariaDB code from GitHub.
• Compile MariaDB with the -g compiler flag (Unix).
• Optionally: with more checking Compile MariaDB for debugging - will cause slowdown.
• Shut down your old mysqld server.
• Install the new compiled mysqld binary. Note that if you are compiling same version of MariaDB that you have already installed it's enough to just copy this one binary!
• Restart mysqld.

Compiling with -g should not cause any notable slowdown of the server.

You can of course also do make install, but the above way allows you to go back to your old binary if needed.

If you get any errors about a wrong number of error messages, you can fix that by copying the corresponding language file from sql/share over your old ones (this should be reasonably safe to do).

cp sql/share/english/* mariadb-install-dir/share/mysql/english

What to do when you get a crash after installing a debug binary

Now when you get a crash do the following:

• Create a README file that described the problem. You can use the mysqlbug script to generate a template for this.
• Create a tar file containing the core, the mysqld binary and README. If possible, also add any database files that could help us repeat the problem!

  sh> tar cvfz /tmp/mariadb-bug-'short-description'.tgz mariadb-data-dir/core* mariadb-install-dir/libexec/mysqld README
  

• Send it to our secure ftp server:

  sh> ftp -a ftp.askmonty.org
  ftp> cd private
  ftp> binary 
  ftp> put /tmp/mariadb-bug-'short-description'.tgz
  ftp> quit
  

• To be able to follow the progress, create a bug report in JIRA about this. This should be easy to do based on the information you have in your README file.

See also

• Compiling MariaDB from Source.
• Compiling MariaDB for debugging