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GDB Over ADB Developer Guide

Release Version: 1.0

Author Email: cody.xie@rock-chips.com

Date: 2019.06

Security Level: Internal

Preface

Overview

GDB Over ADB Developer Guide.

Intended Audience

This document (this guide) is primarily intended for the following engineers:

Technical Support Engineers

Software Development Engineers

Product Versions

Revision History

DateVersionAuthorDescription
2019-06-18V1.0Cody XieInitial version

[TOC]

Buildroot Configuration​

Configure and enable the gdb host program

menuconfig-1

Configure the gdbserver program

menuconfig-2

Selecting gdbserver is sufficient here

menuconfig-3

Configure the buildroot package to be built with debug information. If buildroot has "strip target binaries" configured, it does not affect the final packages in the target, only the staging directory. This is equivalent to Android's symbol directory vs. the final directory.

menuconfig-4

Launching GDB over ADB​

  1. Configure ADB port forwarding

    adb forward tcp:1337 tcp:1337

  2. Launch the GDB Server program

    Execute in adb shell or serial console:

    gdbserver :1337 --attach COM PID # COM is the full path and arguments of the program to execute, PID is the process ID
    # or
    gdbserver :1337 COM
    # for example
    gdbserver :1337 /bin/busybox ls
    Process /bin/busybox created; pid = 633
    Listening on port 1337
    Remote debugging from host 127.0.0.1
    Remote side has terminated connection.  GDBserver will reopen the connection.
    Listening on port 1337
    Remote debugging from host 127.0.0.1
    bin             lib32           proc            tmp
    busybox.config  linuxrc         root            udisk
    config          lost+found      run             userdata
    data            media           sbin            usr
    dev             misc            sdcard          var
    etc             mnt             sys
    init            oem             system
    lib             opt             timestamp

    Child exited with status 0

  3. GDB client debugging

    $ ./buildroot/output/rockchip_puma/host/bin/arm-buildroot-linux-gnueabihf-gdb
    GNU gdb (GDB) 8.1.1
    Copyright (C) 2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
    This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
    There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"
    and "show warranty" for details.
    This GDB was configured as "--host=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --target=arm-buildroot-linux-gnueabihf".
    Type "show configuration" for configuration details.
    For bug reporting instructions, please see:
    <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>.
    Find the GDB manual and other documentation resources online at:
    <http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/documentation/>.
    For help, type "help".
    Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word".
    (gdb) set sysroot /work/linux/rk1808/buildroot/output/rockchip_puma/staging/
    warning: .dynamic section for "/work/linux/rk1808/buildroot/output/rockchip_puma/staging/lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3" is not at the expected address (wrong library or version mismatch?)
    Reading symbols from /work/linux/rk1808/buildroot/output/rockchip_puma/staging/lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3...done.
    Reading symbols from /work/linux/rk1808/buildroot/output/rockchip_puma/staging/lib/libc.so.6...done.
    (gdb) target remote :1337
    Remote debugging using :1337
    Reading /bin/busybox from remote target...
    warning: File transfers from remote targets can be slow. Use "set sysroot" to access files locally instead.
    Reading /bin/busybox from remote target...
    Reading symbols from target:/bin/busybox...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
    Reading /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3 from remote target...
    Reading /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3 from remote target...
    Reading symbols from target:/lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
    0xf72fcbc0 in _start () from target:/lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3