how do execute gdb call function - gdb

Error in sourced command file:
No symbol "saveServer" in current context. How to resolve this?
Ubuntu 16.04
catch signal SIGBUS SIGFPE SIGILL SIGINT SIGSEGV SIGSYS SIGSYS SIGXCPU SIGXFSZ
commands
set $MyVar = 1
call saveServer()
end
set $MyVar = 0
run
if $MyVar == 0
quit
end

Related

quit in .gdbinit

I have composed a .gdbinit file that contains commands to be executed by gdb:
file program
run arg1 arg2
bt
quit
The problem is that quit performs successfully if program crashes and would not perform if program completed successfully.
I need quit to complete in either case. How to fix?
The problem is that quit performs successfully if program crashes and would not perform if program completed successfully.
This is because bt causes an error if program completed successfully. It cause No stack error:
.gdbinit:3: Error in sourced command file:
No stack.
and subsequent quit does not get executed because of an error.
You can use $_isvoid and $_exitsignal variables to fix your .gdbinit script:
file program
run arg1 arg2
if $_isvoid ($_exitsignal)
echo The program has exited\n
else
echo The program has signalled\n
bt
end
quit
See documentation for Convenience Variables.

How do I configure GDB correctly, to stop error "You can't do that without a process to debug"

Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS, GNU gdb (Ubuntu 7.11.1-0ubuntu1~16.5) 7.11.1
I am trying to call a function in a compiled C program and get the following:
"(gdb) call getVarName(someParam)
You can't do that without a process to debug."
There are no other codes or messages.
I can run the program from the shell prompt
jef#ubuntu$ ./program.
I can run the program within gdb after designating the file. Permissions are 777 (just to cover all bases).
Based on research, I set the SHELL with "export SHELL=/bin/bash"
and
set kernal.yama.ptrace_scope = 0 in /etc/sysctl.d/10-ptrace.conf
I still get the same behavior.
I still get the same behavior.
Naturally.
The error you are getting means: you can't do this, unless you are debugging a live process.
This will work:
(gdb) break main
(gdb) run
... GDB is now stopped, *and* you have a live process.
... you *can* call getVarName(...) now
(gdb) call getVarName(...)
(gdb) continue # causes the process to run to end and exit
[Inferior 1 (process 195969) exited normally]
(gdb) # Now you no longer have a live process, so you *again* can't
# call functions in it.

code::blocks debugger stops in wrong places (c++, windows 10)

in my code, I have a break point set at line 8. the debugger doesn't stop there, but DOES stop at line 40. (which is an if-statement in a function definition, if that matters).
-g is on, -s is not, it's built to debug, the file path contains no strange characters.
debugger log:
Starting debugger: C:\MinGW\bin\gdb.exe -nx -fullname -quiet -args C:/Users/John/Desktop/programming/roguelike/bin/Debug/roguelike.exe
done
Registered new type: wxString
Registered new type: STL String
Registered new type: STL Vector
Setting breakpoints
Debugger name and version: GNU gdb (GDB) 7.6.1
Child process PID: 9152
At C:\Users\John\Desktop\programming\roguelike\roguelikesource.cpp:40
pressing continue while it's stopped at 40 gives
Continuing...
In RaiseException () (C:\Windows\SysWOW64\KernelBase.dll)
and pressing it again causes a generic error popup and gives
Continuing...
[Inferior 1 (process 9152) exited with code 0377]
Debugger finished with status 0

Running a program in gdb, but ignoring a graceful exit?

We're running squid from with gdb - that way we can automatically generate backtraces for debugging.
backtrace=`mktemp`
gdb -q -x /etc/service/squid3/gdbcommands /usr/sbin/squid 2>&1 >$backtrace
/usr/bin/mail -s "`hostname`: Squid was restarted (backtrace)" someaddress#charite.de < backtracetrace
rm $backtrace
/etc/service/squid3/gdbcommands contains:
set args -NsYC
handle SIGPIPE pass nostop noprint
handle SIGTERM pass nostop noprint
handle SIGUSR1 pass nostop noprint
handle SIGHUP pass nostop noprint
handle SIGSEGV stop
handle SIGABRT stop
run
set print pretty
backtrace full
generate-core-file
quit
But, every now and then, squid is "just" being stopped & restarted, with no crash being involved at all. In that case I'm still getting an email containing:
Reading symbols from /usr/sbin/squid...done.
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1".
[Inferior 1 (process 57867) exited normally]
/etc/service/squid3/gdbcommands:10: Error in sourced command file:
No stack.
(gdb) quit
And of course there's no stack, since the program exited ok.
How can I change my gdbcommands file to avoid this?
This can be done using either Python or the gdb CLI. Since the CLI is a bit simpler, when possible, I'll sketch that approach.
First, you might as well only create a core file on a bad exit. And, we'll use the gdb exit code later, so let's arrange for that to tell the calling script what happened.
Where your current script says:
backtrace full
generate-core-file
quit
... instead use:
if !$_isvoid($_exitsignal) || (!$_isvoid($_exitcode) && $_exitcode != 0))
backtrace full
generate-core-file
quit 0
end
quit 1
Then your calling script can check the exit code of gdb:
if gdb your args here; then
mail results
fi

Run process with gdb and detach it

Is it possible to run a process with gdb, modify some memory and then detach from the process afterwards?
I can't start the process from outside of gdb as I need to modify the memory, before the first instruction is executed.
When you detach from a process started with gdb, gdb will hang, but killing gdb from another process makes the debugged process still running.
I currently use the following script to launch the process:
echo '# custom gdb function that finds the entry_point an assigns it to $entry_point_address
entry_point
b *$entry_point_address
run
set *((char *)0x100004147) = 0xEB
set *((char *)0x100004148) = 0xE2
detach # gdb hangs here
quit # quit never gets executed
' | gdb -quiet "$file"
This happens in both of my gdb versions:
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1824)
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1822 + reverse.put.as patches v0.4)
I'm pretty sure that you can't detach from an inferior processes that was started directly under gdb, however, something like the following might work for you, this is based on a recent gdb, I don't know how much of this will work on version 6.3.
Create a small shell script, like this:
#! /bin/sh
echo $$
sleep 10
exec /path/to/your/program arg1 arg2 arg3
Now start this up, spot the pid from echo $$, and attach to the shell script like this gdb -p PID. Once attached you can:
(gdb) set follow-fork-mode child
(gdb) catch exec
(gdb) continue
Continuing.
[New process NEW-PID]
process NEW-PID is executing new program: /path/to/your/program
[Switching to process NEW-PID]
Catchpoint 1 (exec'd /path/to/your/program), 0x00007f40d8e9fc80 in _start ()
(gdb)
You can now modify the child process as required. Once you're finished just do:
(gdb) detach
And /path/to/your/program should resume (or start in this case) running.