Debugging Methodologies
Jordan Hendricks and Luqman Aden of Oxide Computer Company detail their methodologies for debugging complex hardware and compiler issues. Hendricks explains how he used the KMDB in-situ debugger to diagnose an NVMe reset hang, discovering that switching from abrupt to normal shutdown notifications resolved the issue. Aden describes his process for debugging a rustc segfault involving inline assembly in async blocks, using LLVM IR analysis and Rust Analyzer to isolate a bug in the compiler's code generation. The episode also covers a third case involving a triple fault caused by undefined behavior in a bare-metal bootloader, highlighting the importance of tooling and collaborative debugging culture at Oxide.