A debugger for distributed programs

Developing a distributed debugger is much more complex than developing a sequential debugger. This added complexity is mainly due to the non‐determinism of events that communication delays introduce into distributed systems. We explore the problems that one must address when designing a distributed program debugger and then describe our design and implementation of DPD (distributed program debugger). Problems addressed include non‐determinism of events, finding consistent system states, setting breakpoints, recording events, and checkpointing. Important features of DPD include dynamic roll back and replay, as well as a graphical user interface. DPD has been tested successfully in debugging distributed programs within a distributed facility called REM (remote execution manager).

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