README
1This is Electric Fence 2.0.5
2
3Electric Fence is a different kind of malloc() debugger. It uses the virtual
4memory hardware of your system to detect when software overruns the boundaries
5of a malloc() buffer. It will also detect any accesses of memory that has
6been released by free(). Because it uses the VM hardware for detection,
7Electric Fence stops your program on the first instruction that causes
8a bounds violation. It's then trivial to use a debugger to display the
9offending statement.
10
11This version will run on:
12 Linux kernel version 1.1.83 and above. Earlier kernels have problems
13 with the memory protection implementation.
14
15 All System V Revision 4 platforms (and possibly earlier revisions)
16 including:
17 Every 386 System V I've heard of.
18 Solaris 2.x
19 SGI IRIX 5.0 (but not 4.x)
20
21 IBM AIX on the RS/6000.
22
23 SunOS 4.X (using an ANSI C compiler and probably static linking).
24
25 HP/UX 9.01, and possibly earlier versions.
26
27 OSF 1.3 (and possibly earlier versions) on a DECalpha.
28
29On some of these platforms, you'll have to uncomment lines in the Makefile
30that apply to your particular system.
31
32If you test Electric Fence on a platform not mentioned here, please send me a
33report.
34
35It will probably port to any ANSI/POSIX system that provides mmap(), and
36mprotect(), as long as mprotect() has the capability to turn off all access
37to a memory page, and mmap() can use /dev/zero or the MAP_ANONYMOUS flag
38to create virtual memory pages.
39
40Complete information on the use of Electric Fence is in the manual page
41libefence.3 .
42
43 Thanks
44
45 Bruce Perens
46 Bruce@Pixar.com
47