Does the order of path to directories input to !sympath make any difference
when it comes to windbg performance? Thanks,
Yes. When WinDbg is looking for a symbol, it will hit the paths you specify
in the order you specify. This means that, in general, you should put
either the most likely to hit or fastest to hit paths first, and put slower
paths last.
This is usually only noticible when you are dealing with remote symbol
stores (through the symbol server - srv** - support, or through unc share
accesses).
If you are looking to improve symbol access performance in general for
multiple computers on a site, you might consider deploying a symbol proxy
server, which can be configured to cache remote symbols (like files
retrieved from the Microsoft symbol server) and serve them up locally
without requiring an Internet hit, if the file requested is already present
in the symbol proxy server’s local store. You can also use this technique
to provide one “unified” symbol path that you can use everywhere that
combines the contents of multiple physical symbol stores into one logical
symbol store. For example, if you have your own internal symbols that you
need to access, as well as symbols on the Microsoft symbol server, you could
set up a symbol proxy to cache both. Then, you would only need to point
your debuggers at your local symbol proxy, in order for them to
automagically get both Microsoft’s public symbols and your symbols.
There is documentation shipped with WinDbg in the form of a .doc file
(symproxy\symhttp.doc)
describing how to set up a symbol proxy. I would not recommend using WinDbg
distributions prior to 6.6.7.5 for use in a symbol proxy as there are issues
with support for making the symbol proxy server work without an HTTP proxy
configured in old versions.
–
Ken Johnson (Skywing)
Windows SDK MVP
http://www.nynaeve.net
“Praveen Kumar Amritaluru” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@windbg…
> Does the order of path to directories input to !sympath make any
> difference when it comes to windbg performance? Thanks,
>
>
>
>
Another way to do this is to blow off the symbol server proxy and just
use a shared file path…
with a local cache directory…
srv*c:\localcache*\public\sharedfilepath*http://msdl.microsoft.com/down
load/symbols
without a local cache directory, and using two symbol stores…
srv*\publicsharedfilepath*\somecomputer\share;srv*\public\sharedfilep
ath*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
This removes the headache of setting up IIS and the symbol server proxy.
It does require that all client computers have write access to the
public share.
.p
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Skywing
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 8:26 AM
To: Kernel Debugging Interest List
Subject: Re:[windbg] Does the order of path to directories input to
!sympath make any difference when it comes to windbg performance?
Thanks,
Yes. When WinDbg is looking for a symbol, it will hit the paths you
specify
in the order you specify. This means that, in general, you should put
either the most likely to hit or fastest to hit paths first, and put
slower
paths last.
This is usually only noticible when you are dealing with remote symbol
stores (through the symbol server - srv** - support, or through unc
share
accesses).
If you are looking to improve symbol access performance in general for
multiple computers on a site, you might consider deploying a symbol
proxy
server, which can be configured to cache remote symbols (like files
retrieved from the Microsoft symbol server) and serve them up locally
without requiring an Internet hit, if the file requested is already
present
in the symbol proxy server’s local store. You can also use this
technique
to provide one “unified” symbol path that you can use everywhere that
combines the contents of multiple physical symbol stores into one
logical
symbol store. For example, if you have your own internal symbols that
you
need to access, as well as symbols on the Microsoft symbol server, you
could
set up a symbol proxy to cache both. Then, you would only need to point
your debuggers at your local symbol proxy, in order for them to
automagically get both Microsoft’s public symbols and your symbols.
There is documentation shipped with WinDbg in the form of a .doc file
(symproxy\symhttp.doc)
describing how to set up a symbol proxy. I would not recommend using
WinDbg
distributions prior to 6.6.7.5 for use in a symbol proxy as there are
issues
with support for making the symbol proxy server work without an HTTP
proxy
configured in old versions.
–
Ken Johnson (Skywing)
Windows SDK MVP
http://www.nynaeve.net
“Praveen Kumar Amritaluru” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@windbg…
> Does the order of path to directories input to !sympath make any
> difference when it comes to windbg performance? Thanks,
>
>
>
>
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