// deep dives from the bottom of the stack
~/howtf.io
Every debugging story I have starts the same way: staring at a bug, asking howtf did that happen?
This site is a collection of those moments. Kernel, loader, GPU, virtual machine monitor: I demystify the bugs that live at the deepest levels of the systems stack.
There is an immense, almost ridiculous pleasure in stripping away the magic and feeling that computers can actually be understood. Or at least I tell myself that, until the next crash.
howtf can a device be both present and not found?
A recurring production SEV, a device that was present and not found, and the decades-old linker rule that split one library's state into two. Part 2 of Linking & Loading.
sessionhowtf does ./app reach main()?
Trace one command from keystroke to main(), through the kernel, loader, and PLT/GOT, until two classic deploy errors stop being mysterious.