Running catch-syscall.exp against a gdbserver that actually supports it, we get: FAIL: gdb.base/catch-syscall.exp: continue until exit (the program exited) FAIL: gdb.base/catch-syscall.exp: continue until exit (the program exited) FAIL: gdb.base/catch-syscall.exp: continue until exit (the program exited) FAIL: gdb.base/catch-syscall.exp: continue until exit at catch syscall with unused syscall (mlock) (the program exited) FAIL: gdb.base/catch-syscall.exp: continue until exit (the program exited) The fail pattern is: Catchpoint 2 (call to syscall exit_group), 0x000000323d4baa29 in _exit () from /lib64/libc.so.6 (gdb) PASS: gdb.base/catch-syscall.exp: program has called exit_group delete breakpoints Delete all breakpoints? (y or n) y (gdb) info breakpoints No breakpoints or watchpoints. (gdb) break exit Breakpoint 3 at 0x323d438bf0 (gdb) continue Continuing. [Inferior 1 (process 21081) exited normally] That "break exit" + "continue" comes from: > # gdb_continue_to_end: > # The case where the target uses stubs has to be handled specially. If a > # stub is used, we set a breakpoint at exit because we cannot rely on > # exit() behavior of a remote target. > # The native-gdbserver.exp board, used to test against gdbserver in "target remote" mode, triggers that case ($use_gdb_stub is true). So gdb_continue_to_end doesn't work for catch-syscall.exp as here we catch the exit_group and continue from that, expecting to see a real program exit. I was about to post a patch that changes catch-syscall.exp to call a new function that just always does what gdb_continue_to_end does in the !$use_gdb_stub case. But, since GDBserver doesn't really need this, in the end I thought it better to teach the testsuite that there are stubs that know how to report program exits, by adding a new "exit_is_reliable" board variable that then gdb_continue_to_end checks. Tested on x86_64 Fedora 17, native and gdbserver. gdb/testsuite/ 2013-10-02 Pedro Alves <palves@redhat.com> * README (Board Settings): Document "exit_is_reliable". * lib/gdb.exp (gdb_continue_to_end): Check whether the board says running to exit reliably reports program exits. * boards/native-gdbserver.exp: Set exit_is_reliable in the board info. * boards/native-stdio-gdbserver.exp: Likewise.