Source-level debugging of client dump image in a computer network

摘要

A client station on computer network uses an operating system such as JavaOS which is permanently stored at the server rather than on storage media at the client location. JavaOS is loaded and installed at the client upon bootup of the client. Java is an interpreted language; the source is available at the server and is downloaded as such. Upon the occurrence of a malfunction that causes the client to go off-line, i.e., disappear from the network, a dump image is sent to the server before the client reboots, so that the cause of failure can be determined. The dump image includes the contents of memory, including the JavaOS operating system, and the stack, threads, registers, and local/global variables, which can be analyzed at a source level. This image is sent to the server in formatted packets, by a path separate from that of the TCP/IP network protocol, since the client would not be functioning properly on the network. At the server, the packets making up the dump image are stored on storage media, and the image is reformatted for use by a standard debugging tool, ICAT.