Troubleshooting Applications from Chkbin Logs

  • 7006753
  • 30-Aug-2010
  • 08-Nov-2012

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server 1 (OES 1) Linux
Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
Chkbin

Situation

How is the chkbin log organized?
Whenever you have an application that is core dumping, segfaulting or misbehaves, run chkbin against the application and then look at the chkbin log file for troubleshooting information.

Resolution

Chkbin is a troubleshooting tool included in the supportutils package. It checks the basic health of a specific application. The supportconfig tool will gather the /var/log/nts_chkbin* log files and include them in the crash.txt file. If you don't specify the full path to the binary, chkbin searches the current working directory and the PATH environment variable for the executable, and uses it if found. Usage:

chkbin </path/to/binary>

Chkbin does the following:
  • Checks the location of each shared library
  • Identifies each RPM package owner for the binary and each of it's shared library dependencies
  • Validates each unique RPM package
  • Displays the root environment variables LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_PRELOAD
  • Gets a copy of the configuration files /etc/ld.so.conf and /etc/ld.so.preload
  • Checks for unique dlopen libraries and their validity
If any of the RPM packages show damage to the binary or any of it's shared library dependencies, consider reinstalling the affected RPM packages and retesting.

If the RPM validation shows modifications to configuration files, confirm the modifications are correct and the configuration is valid.

If an application cannot find a shared library make sure the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable is set correctly according to the application's documentation and run ldconfig.