GDB usage
QEMU supports working with gdb via gdb’s remote-connection facility (the “gdbstub”). This allows you to debug guest code in the same way that you might with a low-level debug facility like JTAG on real hardware. You can stop and start the virtual machine, examine state like registers and memory, and set breakpoints and watchpoints.
In order to use gdb, launch QEMU with the -s
and -S
options.
The -s
option will make QEMU listen for an incoming connection
from gdb on TCP port 1234, and -S
will make QEMU not start the
guest until you tell it to from gdb. (If you want to specify which
TCP port to use or to use something other than TCP for the gdbstub
connection, use the -gdb dev
option instead of -s
. See
Using unix sockets for an example.)
qemu-system-x86_64 -s -S -kernel bzImage -hda rootdisk.img -append "root=/dev/hda"
QEMU will launch but will silently wait for gdb to connect.
Then launch gdb on the ‘vmlinux’ executable:
> gdb vmlinux
In gdb, connect to QEMU:
(gdb) target remote localhost:1234
Then you can use gdb normally. For example, type ‘c’ to launch the kernel:
(gdb) c
Here are some useful tips in order to use gdb on system code:
Use
info reg
to display all the CPU registers.Use
x/10i $eip
to display the code at the PC position.Use
set architecture i8086
to dump 16 bit code. Then usex/10i $cs*16+$eip
to dump the code at the PC position.
Debugging multicore machines
GDB’s abstraction for debugging targets with multiple possible
parallel flows of execution is a two layer one: it supports multiple
“inferiors”, each of which can have multiple “threads”. When the QEMU
machine has more than one CPU, QEMU exposes each CPU cluster as a
separate “inferior”, where each CPU within the cluster is a separate
“thread”. Most QEMU machine types have identical CPUs, so there is a
single cluster which has all the CPUs in it. A few machine types are
heterogeneous and have multiple clusters: for example the sifive_u
machine has a cluster with one E51 core and a second cluster with four
U54 cores. Here the E51 is the only thread in the first inferior, and
the U54 cores are all threads in the second inferior.
When you connect gdb to the gdbstub, it will automatically
connect to the first inferior; you can display the CPUs in this
cluster using the gdb info thread
command, and switch between
them using gdb’s usual thread-management commands.
For multi-cluster machines, unfortunately gdb does not by default
handle multiple inferiors, and so you have to explicitly connect
to them. First, you must connect with the extended-remote
protocol, not remote
:
(gdb) target extended-remote localhost:1234
Once connected, gdb will have a single inferior, for the first cluster. You need to create inferiors for the other clusters and attach to them, like this:
(gdb) add-inferior
Added inferior 2
(gdb) inferior 2
[Switching to inferior 2 [<null>] (<noexec>)]
(gdb) attach 2
Attaching to process 2
warning: No executable has been specified and target does not support
determining executable automatically. Try using the "file" command.
0x00000000 in ?? ()
Once you’ve done this, info threads
will show CPUs in
all the clusters you have attached to:
(gdb) info threads
Id Target Id Frame
1.1 Thread 1.1 (cortex-m33-arm-cpu cpu [running]) 0x00000000 in ?? ()
* 2.1 Thread 2.2 (cortex-m33-arm-cpu cpu [halted ]) 0x00000000 in ?? ()
You probably also want to set gdb to schedule-multiple
mode,
so that when you tell gdb to continue
it resumes all CPUs,
not just those in the cluster you are currently working on:
(gdb) set schedule-multiple on
Using unix sockets
An alternate method for connecting gdb to the QEMU gdbstub is to use a unix socket (if supported by your operating system). This is useful when running several tests in parallel, or if you do not have a known free TCP port (e.g. when running automated tests).
First create a chardev with the appropriate options, then instruct the gdbserver to use that device:
qemu-system-x86_64 -chardev socket,path=/tmp/gdb-socket,server=on,wait=off,id=gdb0 -gdb chardev:gdb0 -S ...
Start gdb as before, but this time connect using the path to the socket:
(gdb) target remote /tmp/gdb-socket
Note that to use a unix socket for the connection you will need gdb version 9.0 or newer.
Advanced debugging options
Changing single-stepping behaviour
The default single stepping behavior is step with the IRQs and timer service routines off. It is set this way because when gdb executes a single step it expects to advance beyond the current instruction. With the IRQs and timer service routines on, a single step might jump into the one of the interrupt or exception vectors instead of executing the current instruction. This means you may hit the same breakpoint a number of times before executing the instruction gdb wants to have executed. Because there are rare circumstances where you want to single step into an interrupt vector the behavior can be controlled from GDB. There are three commands you can query and set the single step behavior:
maintenance packet qqemu.sstepbits
This will display the MASK bits used to control the single stepping IE:
(gdb) maintenance packet qqemu.sstepbits sending: "qqemu.sstepbits" received: "ENABLE=1,NOIRQ=2,NOTIMER=4"
maintenance packet qqemu.sstep
This will display the current value of the mask used when single stepping IE:
(gdb) maintenance packet qqemu.sstep sending: "qqemu.sstep" received: "0x7"
maintenance packet Qqemu.sstep=HEX_VALUE
This will change the single step mask, so if wanted to enable IRQs on the single step, but not timers, you would use:
(gdb) maintenance packet Qqemu.sstep=0x5 sending: "qemu.sstep=0x5" received: "OK"
Examining physical memory
Another feature that QEMU gdbstub provides is to toggle the memory GDB works with, by default GDB will show the current process memory respecting the virtual address translation.
If you want to examine/change the physical memory you can set the gdbstub to work with the physical memory rather with the virtual one.
The memory mode can be checked by sending the following command:
maintenance packet qqemu.PhyMemMode
This will return either 0 or 1, 1 indicates you are currently in the physical memory mode.
maintenance packet Qqemu.PhyMemMode:1
This will change the memory mode to physical memory.
maintenance packet Qqemu.PhyMemMode:0
This will change it back to normal memory mode.