Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 5, Revised Edition
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Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 5, Revised Edition

About the Book

This reference volume consists of revised, edited, cross-referenced, and thematically organized articles from Software Diagnostics Institute and Software Diagnostics Library (former Crash Dump Analysis blog) written in February 2010 - October 2010. In addition to various corrections, this major revision updates relevant links and removes obsolete references. Some articles are preserved for historical reasons. Most of the content, especially memory analysis and trace and log analysis pattern languages, is still relevant today and for the foreseeable future. The output of WinDbg commands is also remastered to include color highlighting. Crash dump analysis pattern names are also corrected to reflect the continued expansion of the catalog. The fifth volume features:

- 25 new crash dump analysis patterns

- 11 new pattern interaction case studies (including software tracing)

- 16 new trace analysis patterns

- 7 structural memory patterns

- 4 modeling case studies for memory dump analysis patterns

- Discussion of 3 common analysis mistakes

- Malware analysis case study

- Computer independent architecture of crash analysis report service

- Expanded coverage of software narratology

- Metaphysical and theological implications of memory dump worldview

- More pictures of memory space and physicalist art

- Classification of memory visualization tools

- Memory visualization case studies

- Close reading of the stories of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson’s observational patterns

- Fully cross-referenced with Volumes 1 - 4

The primary audience for Memory Dump Analysis Anthology reference volumes is: software engineers developing and maintaining products on Windows platforms, technical support, escalation, and site reliability engineers dealing with complex software issues, quality assurance engineers testing software on Windows platforms, security and vulnerability researchers, reverse engineers, malware and memory forensics analysts. Trace and log analysis articles may be of interest to users of other platforms.

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    • C and C++
    • Testing
    • Computer Science
    • Computer Hardware
    • Computer Security
    • Software Architecture
    • Resiliency
    • Operating System Development
    • Software Engineering
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About the Author

Dmitry Vostokov
Dmitry Vostokov

Dmitry Vostokov is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, educator, scientist, inventor, and author. He is the founder of pattern-oriented software diagnostics, forensics, and prognostics discipline (Systematic Software Diagnostics), and Software Diagnostics Institute. Vostokov has also authored more than 50 books on software diagnostics, anomaly detection and analysis, software and memory forensics, root cause analysis and problem solving, memory dump analysis, debugging, software trace and log analysis, reverse engineering and malware analysis. He has more than 25 years of experience in software architecture, design, development and maintenance in a variety of industries including leadership, technical and people management roles. Dmitry also founded Syndromatix, Anolog.io, BriteTrace, DiaThings, Logtellect, OpenTask Iterative and Incremental Publishing, Software Diagnostics Technology and Services (former Memory Dump Analysis Services), and Software Prognostics. In his spare time, he presents various topics on Debugging TV and explores Software Narratology, its further development as Narratology of Things and Diagnostics of Things (DoT), Software Pathology, and Quantum Software Diagnostics. His current areas of interest are theoretical software diagnostics and its mathematical and computer science foundations, application of formal logic, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining to diagnostics and anomaly detection, software diagnostics engineering and diagnostics-driven development, diagnostics workflow and interaction. Recent interest areas also include cloud native computing, security, automation, functional programming, applications of category theory to software diagnostics, development and big data, and diagnostics of artificial intelligence.

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Table of Contents

Preface 17

Acknowledgements 19

About the Author 20

PART 1: Professional Crash Dump Analysis and Debugging 21

Common Mistakes 21

Not Double-Checking Symbolic Output 21

Not Looking Past the First Found Evidence 24

Not Recognizing Data as UNICODE or ASCII Fragments 26

Common Questions 28

What Service is This? 28

Complete Stack Traces from x64 System 30

Software Behavior Patterns 32

Crash and Hang Analysis Audit Service 33

Case Study: Extremely Inconsistent Dump and CPU Spike 34

Raw Stack Dump of All Thread Stacks 39

Architecture of CARE 41

PART 2: Crash Dump Analysis Patterns 43

Succession of Patterns 43

Wait Chain (Process Objects) 49

Coincidental Frames 55

Fault Context 59

Coupled Processes (Weak) 60

Hooked Functions (Kernel Space) 63

Hardware Activity 66

Incorrect Symbolic Information 71

Message Hooks 76

Blocked Thread (Hardware) 79

Coupled Machines 81

High Contention (Processors) 82

Thread Starvation (Normal Priority) 85

Coupled Processes (Semantics) 87

Abridged Dump 88

Exception Stack Trace 93

Wait Chain (RPC) 95

Distributed Spike 99

Instrumentation Information 108

Template Module 112

Invalid Exception Information 116

Shared Buffer Overwrite 120

Pervasive System 125

Problem Exception Handler 126

Deadlock (Self) 127

Same Vendor 128

PART 3: Crash Dump Analysis AntiPatterns 129

Wild Explanations 129

PART 4: Pattern Interaction 133

Inconsistent Dump, Stack Trace Collection, LPC, Thread, Process, Executive Resource Wait Chains, Missing Threads, and Waiting Thread Time 133

Fault Context, Wild Code, and Hardware Error 137

Main Thread, Critical Section Wait Chains, Critical Section Deadlock, Stack Trace Collection, Execution Residue, Data Contents Locality, Self-Diagnosis, and Not My Version 145

Strong Process Coupling, Stack Trace Collection, Critical Section Corruption, Wait Chains, Message Box, Self-Diagnosis, Hidden Exception, and Dynamic Memory Corruption 158

Object Distribution Anomaly, Inconsistent Dump, Execution Residue, Hardware Activity, Coincidental Symbolic Information, Not My Version, and Virtualized System 169

Spiking Thread, Main Thread, Message Hooks, Hooked Functions, Semantic Split, Coincidental Symbolic Information, and Not My Version 180

Stack Trace Collection, Special Process, LPC and Critical Section Wait Chains, Blocked Thread, Coupled Machines, Thread Waiting Time, and Object Distribution Anomaly 188

ALPC Wait Chains, Missing Threads, Waiting Thread Time and Semantic Process Coupling 200

Insufficient Kernel Pool Memory, Spiking Thread, and Data Contents Locality 201

Incorrect Stack Trace, Stack Overflow, Early Crash Dump, Nested Exception, Problem Exception Handler, and Same Vendor 206

PART 5: A Bit of Science and Philosophy 213

Memory Systems Language 213

Categories for the Working Software Defect Researcher 214

Collective Pointer 214

Notes on Memoidealism 217

Archaeological Foundations for Memory Analysis 218

On God and Miracles 220

Psychoanalysis of Software Troubleshooting and Debugging 221

Ontological and Epistemological Memoidealism 222

On Unconscious 223

Ruminations on Automated Debugging 224

General Memory Analysis 225

Notation for Memory and Trace Analysis 226

Category Theory and Troubleshooting 227

Software Chorography and Chorology: A Definition 229

PART 6: Fun with Crash Dumps 231

Music for Debugging 231

Retry, Abort, Escape 231

Debugging Slang 232

STUPID 232

On the Same Page 233

.SYS 234

PLOT 235

Freedom 236

Free Verse 237

BCE, BC, and CE 238

HCI 239

Blog 240

Inherit a Fortune 241

Dr. Watson’s Observational Patterns 242

Memory Dumps in Myths 245

Bus Debugging 246

Debugging the Debugger (16-bit) 247

Dr. DebugLove and Nature 249

Sailing Memory Spaces under an RGB Flag 253

Don’t Name Your Driver a “Missile” 254

Notepad Debugging 255

!analyze -vostokov 263

Contemplating Crash Dumps in Unicode 264

Memory Dump Analysis Services Cap and T-Shirt 266

Troubleshooting Poem in Six Stanzas 267

On the Interpretation of M-Theory 268

Check the Name of Your Driver in Reverse 269

PART 7: Software Trace Analysis 271

Pattern Interaction 271

Adjoint Threads, Discontinuity, and Time Delta 271

Basic Software PLOTs 272

Two Readings of a Software Trace 274

CDFMarker Tool 276

The Extended Software Trace 277

Presenting a Software Story 278

Adjoint Threading in Process Monitor 279

PART 8: Software Trace Analysis Patterns 281

Significant Event 281

Time Delta 282

Adjoint Thread of Activity 283

Trace Acceleration 284

Incomplete History 286

Background and Foreground Components 287

Defamiliarizing Effect 290

Anchor Messages 293

No Trace Metafile 296

No Activity 297

Trace Partition 299

Truncated Trace 301

Diegetic Messages 302

False Positive Error 303

Guest Component 304

Message Change 305

Layered Periodization 306

PART 9: Models of Software Behaviour 311

Multiple Exceptions Pattern 311

Memory Leak (Process Heap) Pattern 315

Message Hooks Pattern 326

Modeling C++ Object Corruption 330

PART 10: The Origin of Crash Dumps 335

More on Demystifying First-chance Exceptions 335

PART 11: Structural Memory Patterns 343

Memory Snapshot 343

Aggregate Snapshot 345

Snapshot Collection 346

Memory Region 347

Region Boundary 348

Memory Hierarchy 350

Anchor Region 351

PART 12: Memory Visualization 353

Memory Map Visualization Tools (Revised) 353

Decomposing Memory Dumps via DumpFilter 355

Can a Memory Dump be Blue? 359

Virtual to Physical Memory Mapping 360

The Memory Visualization Question 363

PART 13: Art 375

Sweet Oil of Memory 375

Night Sky 376

Component Trace 377

Ana-Trace-Log-Lyzer and Closed Session 378

Computer Memory Gardens 380

Debugging Venue 381

Inside a Memory File 382

Fabric of Memory Dumps 383

Race Condition in a Kernel Pool 394

Memory Interfaces 395

Bleeding Memory 396

Picture Frame for Memory Dumps 398

Front Cover Glitch 399

Chance Exceptions in a Turing Machine 400

PART 14: Security and Malware Analysis 401

Crash Dumps and Password Exposure 401

Crash Dump Analysis of Defective Malware 406

PART 15: Miscellaneous 411

Native Script Debugging 411

Component Heap 414

Attached Processes 416

User/Kernel Diagramming Styles 419

Appendix 423

Contention Patterns 423

Raw Stack Analysis Scripts 424

Crash Dump Analysis Checklist 425

Index of WinDbg Commands 429

Cover Images 431

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