Debugging a program that uses SIGINT with gdb

Question

I frequently work with PostgreSQL for debugging, and it uses SIGINT internally for some of its inter-backend signalling.

As a result when running certain backends under gdb execution tends to get interrupted a lot. One can use the signal command to make sure SIGINT is passed to the program and that it is not captured by gdb... but then gdb doesn't respond to control-C on the command line, since that sends SIGINT.

If you run:

handle SIGINT noprint nostop pass

gdb will complain

SIGINT is used by the debugger.
Are you sure you want to change it? (y or n) y

Is there any way to get gdb to use a different interrupt signal? Or any alternative method that'd let me have gdb ignore SIGINT?

(This isn't an issue for most PostgreSQL backend debugging, but it's a pain with background workers and autovacuum).

Answer 1

Readers who end up on this page (as I did) with a slightly different variation of this problem, would perhaps be more interested in this question:

Debugging a segmentation fault when I do ctrl c

... and its answer, which is:

• send SIGINT from inside gdb itself:

  (gdb) signal 2

(Normally I would post the link as a simple comment under the OP's question on this page, but since there are already 7 comments, comments are being hidden/buried.)

If you read all the details of the OP's question here, then it is obvious that my answer is not correct for OP.

However, my answer is correct for many situations that could be described by the same title: "Debugging a program that uses SIGINT with gdb"

Answer 2

On UNIX-like systems, you can distinguish a tty-initiated SIGINT from one sent by kill by looking at the si_pid element in the siginfo struct. If the pid is 0, it came from a tty.

So you could do something like this:

catch signal SIGINT
commands
  if $_siginfo._sifields._kill.si_pid == 0
    print "Received SIGINT from tty"
  else
    printf "Received SIGINT from %d; continuing\n", $_siginfo._sifields._kill.si_pid
    signal SIGINT
  end
end

Answer 3

This part of gdb is a bit tricky, both due to its history and also due to the various modes of operation it supports.

One might think that running gdb in a separate terminal and only using attach would help it do the right thing, but I don't think it is that easy.

One way forward might be to only use async execution when debugging, and then use a command to interrupt the inferior. Something like:

(gdb) attach 5555
... attaches
(gdb) continue &
... lots of stuff happens
(gdb) interrupt -a

Depending on your version of gdb you might need to set target-async for this to work.