# Debug Linux kernel space issues

At a high level, you can categorize issues in the kernel space as kernel panic and bugs. To debug kernel space issues, you can use the following logs, command line tools, and dumps shown in the figure:

- The logs section includes dynamic debug, kernel debugging configuration, and function tracer.
- The command-line tools provide access to the `/proc` and `debugfs` file systems.
- The dumps section lists RAM dump, RAM parser, crash utility, and OpenOCD that are used for analyzing system crashes and memory states.

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**Figure: Resources to debug issues in kernel space**

You can generate kernel logs using the `dmesg` command.

To debug issues in the kernel space, it's recommended to use the `debug` build. For more information about how to generate the `debug` build, see [Qualcomm Linux metadata layers overview](https://docs.qualcomm.com/bundle/publicresource/topics/80-70023-27/qualcomm_linux_metadata_layers.html).

For more information about kernel source configuration files, see [Qualcomm Linux Kernel Guide](https://docs.qualcomm.com/bundle/publicresource/topics/80-70023-3/kernel_landing_page.html).

## Next steps

- [Enable kernel debugging](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/enable_kernel_debugging.html)
- [Configure the kernel for debugging](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/configure_the_kernel_for_debugging.html)
- [Assess memory usage](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/assess_memory_usage.html)
- [Trace kernel functions](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/trace_kernel_functions.html)
- [Collect and parse RAM dump](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/collect_and_parse_ram_dumps.html)
- [Parse RAM dumps using RAMParser](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/parse_ram_dumps_using_linux_ramdump_parser_rdp.html)
- [Parse RAM dumps using QCAP](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/parse_ram_dumps_using_qcap.html)
- [Debug using the crash utility tool](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/crash_utility.html)
- [Debug using OpenOCD](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70023-12/topic/debug_using_openocd.html)

Last Published: Feb 12, 2026

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