Unable to find stack smashing function using GDB

Question

I have the following C application: ``` #include <stdio.h> void smash() { int i; char buffer[16]; for(i = 0; i < 17; i++) // <-- exceeds the limit of the buffer { buffer[i] = i; } } int main() { printf("Starting
"); smash(); return 0; } ``` I cross-compiled using the following version of gcc: ``` armv5l-linux-gnueabi-gcc -v Using built-in specs. Target: armv5l-linux-gnueabi Configured with: /home/tarjeif/svn/builder/build_armv5l-linux-gnueabi/gcc-4.4.1/gcc-4.4.1/configure --target=armv5l-linux-gnueabi --host=i486-linux-gnu --build=i486-linux-gnu --prefix=/home/tarjeif/svn/builder/build_armv5l-linux-gnueabi/toolchain --with-sysroot=/home/tarjeif/svn/builder/build_armv5l-linux-gnueabi/toolchain --with-headers=/home/tarjeif/svn/builder/build_armv5l-linux-gnueabi/toolchain/include --enable-languages=c,c++ --with-gmp=/home/tarjeif/svn/builder/build_armv5l-linux-gnueabi/gmp-5.0.0/gmp-host-install --with-mpfr=/home/tarjeif/svn/builder/build_armv5l-linux-gnueabi/mpfr-2.4.2/mpfr-host-install…

Accepted Answer

The problem is that the version of GCC which compiled your target libc.so.6 is buggy and did not emit correct unwind descriptors for `__GI_raise`. With incorrect unwind descriptors, GDB gets into a loop while unwinding the stack.

You can examine the unwind descriptors with

```
readelf -wf /home/andersn/workspace/stacktest/linux/toolchain/lib/libc.so.6
```

I expect you'll get exact same result in GDB from any program calling abort, e.g.

```
#include <stdlib.h>
void foo() { abort(); }
int main() { foo(); return 0; }
```

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do, other than trying to build newer version of GCC, and then rebuilding the whole "world" with it.

Unable to find stack smashing function using GDB

Solution

Problem