gdb

Runs on:

Linux, Microsoft Windows

Description:

Invoke the GNU Debugger by running gdb. Once started, gdb reads commands from the terminal until you tell it to exit.

For more information about GDB, see https://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/documentation/.

QNX OS extensions

The QNX OS implementation of GDB includes some extensions:

target qnx com_port_specifier | host:port

Specify the target to use.

Note:

The devc-pty manager must be running on the machine that's running pdebug or qconn, and a ptyp/ttyp pair must be available.

set nto-executable path_on_target

Point GDB at an existing remote executable. You can do this instead of uploading a copy to the target. For example, to debug echo on the target you can start gdb on the host, and then point it to the target executable:

# ntoaarch64-gdb $QNX_TARGET/aarch64le/bin/echo
(gdb) set nto-executable /bin/echo
(gdb) run hello

Note:

The upload command implicitly sets the nto-executable value. This behavior can be controlled with the option upload-sets-exec.

set nto-inherit-env value

Set where the remote process inherits its environment from, based on the value argument:

• 0 (the default) — the process inherits its environment from GDB.
• 1 — the process inherits its environment from pdebug. In this case, you can't set LD_LIBRARY_PATH through gdb. The env command works but it doesn't have an effect.

Note:

The QNX OS implementation of GDB only supports up to 100 environment variables and any additional environment variables are dropped without warning. This is important to note because running pdebug in debug mode uses over 100 environment variables and generates a terminal message that says, incorrectly, that the target has run out of memory. The real issue is that the limit on the number of environment variables was exceeded.

set nto-cwd path

Specify the remote process's working directory. You should do this before starting your program.

set nto-debug

Provides debug-specific information when given a positive non-zero value. Different information is displayed for various positive non-zero values.

set nto-stop-on-thread-events stop

Stop on thread events. When stop is 1, gdb stops on thread created and thread destroyed events. The default is 0 (disabled).

set nto-timeout time

If your communication line is slow, you might need to set the timeout for remote reads; time is the timeout, in seconds. The default is 10 seconds.

upload local_path remote_path

Send a file to a remote target system.

upload-sets-exec

A flag that controls if nto-executable is set by using upload.

download remote_path local_path

Retrieve a file from a remote target system.

info pidlist

List processes on the target. You can use an optional argument to filter out process names that do not contain an argument string (case insensitive). For example, running it in the GDB console with pdebug as its argument generates the following output:

    (gdb) info pidlist pdebug
usr/bin/pdebug - 872540/1

Running it in the GDB console with slog as its argument generates the following output:

    (gdb) info pidlist slog
proc/boot/slogger2 - 12296/1

You can also use pidin or ps on the target system to get this information.

info meminfo

Display a list of memory-region mappings (shared objects) for the current process being debugged. Here is sample output from running it on the GDB console:

    (gdb) info meminfo
/proc/boot/libc.so.4
        text=00053000 bytes @ 0x01000000
                flags=00010571
                debug=00000000
                offset=00000000002b1000
        data=00002000 bytes @ 0x010af000
                flags=00010372
                debug=000af000
                offset=0000000000350000
        dev=0x802
        ino=0x80000010
/dev/zero
        text=00010000 bytes @ 0x0109b000
                flags=080800a2
                debug=0109b000
                offset=000000000009b000
        data=00009000 bytes @ 0x100db000
                flags=01080302
                debug=100db000
                offset=0000000000000000
        dev=0x1
        ino=0x3
/usr/bin/sleep
        text=00001000 bytes @ 0x100c8000
                flags=00010572
                debug=00000000
                offset=0000000006275000
        data=00001000 bytes @ 0x100da000
                flags=00010332
                debug=00012000
                offset=0000000006277000
        dev=0x802
        ino=0x80001786

info tidinfo

Displays the threads for the current process. For example, when run against a process with a pid of 884827 it outputs:

(gdb) info tidinfo
Threads for pid 884827 (/bins/sleep)
Tid:    State:  Flags:
 *1      3       131

A quick overview of starting the debugger

To debug an application, do the following:

1. Start GDB, optionally the application as an argument:

   gdb_variant
   

   or:

   gdb_variant local_path/my_application
   

2. If you didn't specify the application when you started GDB, load the symbol information for the application:

   file my_application
   

3. Set the target:

   target qnx com_port_specifier | host:port
   

4. Send the application to the target:

   upload my_application /tmp/my_application
   

5. Set any breakpoints. For example, to set a breakpoint in main():

   set break main
   

6. Start the application:

   run
   

To remote start and debug a binary with GDB, do the following:

1. Start GDB using env-i and setting the target:

   env -i \
        QNX_TARGET=${QNX_TARGET} \
          ntoaarch64-gdb \
          target qnx target_ip:port \
   

2. To search for symbols, manually set solib-search-path:

   set solib-search-path /host/symbol/search/path:/path2/
   

3. At this point, if you choose to not inherit the enviroment from pdebug or qconn, the environment variables to apply on the target need to be set manually. For example:

   set nto-inherit-env 0
   unset environment QNX_TARGET
   set environment PATH=/proc/boot:/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
   set environment LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/proc/boot:/lib:/usr/lib
   set environment BOARD_SHUTDOWN_DLL=libshutdown.so
   set environment GRAPHICS_ROOT=/usr/lib/graphics/...
   file /host/path/to/executable/symbol/file
   

4. Lastly, set the nto-executable:

   set nto-executable /target/path/to/execuable

5. Start the application:

   run arg1 arg2

Contributing author:

GNU