A bug in the new code for debuginfo-less probing in 0.9.7 may result in occasional kernel BUG/crashes, when the function parameter causes a failed registration. I believe Josh has a reproducing recipe (please attach here), and also has two or three patches on mainline systemtap that could be backported to rhel5.4's new build.
I have a reproducer that works on Fedora, but when I tried it on RHEL5.4, I discovered that the debuginfo-less probing is completely broken. It doesn't get past the compile phase with a simple probe, so we never even get to the potential BUG point in the kernel. I will put together a patch which fixes the compile problems and also fixes the runtime BUG.
Created attachment 341665 [details] Backport fixes for dwarfless kprobes This is a backport of a few fixes for dwarfless kprobes that were made after the 0.9.7 release. The upstream commits are: 5badd4d... Don't terminate when a dwarfless kprobe fails 46856d8... Fill out the pp() for dwarfless kprobes 8874701... fix kprobe.* probes so they don't break -p4 if script also has kernel.* probes 9f38e65... Handle kprobe struct field symbol_name as either char * or const char *.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2009-1313.html