abrt-action-analyze-backtrace
Analyze program backtraces for root cause
TLDR
Analyze backtrace for the current working directory
Analyze backtrace for a specific directory
Analyze backtrace verbosely
SYNOPSIS
abrt-action-analyze-backtrace [-v] [-k] [-t hours] DUMP_DIRECTORY
PARAMETERS
-v, --verbose
Be more verbose. Implies "all:debug" logging.
-k, --keep
Do not delete GDB's temporary files on exit.
-t HOURS, --max-hours HOURS
Skip backtraces older than HOURS (default: 24).
DESCRIPTION
The abrt-action-analyze-backtrace is a backend script in the Automatic Bug Reporting Tool (ABRT) ecosystem on Linux, mainly Fedora and RHEL. It processes backtraces from crash dumps to validate sanity, symbolize stacks using GDB, and extract thread details.
Automatically invoked by ABRT hooks post-crash (e.g., after abrt-action-generate-backtrace), it checks for valid 'stacktrace' files. Successful analysis enables duplicate detection against databases like retrace-server or Bugzilla, preventing redundant reports and aiding triage.
Key steps: sanity checks, GDB symbolization (requiring debuginfo), thread listing, and age filtering. Outputs actionable data for further ABRT actions like reporting or notifying users. Essential for automated crash handling in production environments, it reduces manual debugging overhead.
Typically runs non-interactively as root via systemd or cron-like hooks.
CAVEATS
Requires installed debuginfo packages for symbolization; fails silently on missing symbols. Not for manual use—part of ABRT pipeline. Needs root or cap_sys_ptrace for GDB. High CPU/memory on large dumps.
CONFIGURATION
/etc/abrt/abrt-action-analyze-backtrace.conf
Keys: RetraceServerURL, BugzillaURL, OpenGPGCheck.
ENVIRONMENT
GDB=path to GDB binary.
ABRT_VERBOSE=1 enables debug.
ABRT_PROPERTY=extra metadata.
HISTORY
Introduced in ABRT for Fedora 14 (2010) by Red Hat. Evolved with retrace-server (2012) for cloud symbolization. Integrated into RHEL 7+; modern versions support kernel unwind and C/C++ retracing.
