Debugging embedded device - c++

I work on an embedded device on powerPC with WindRiver linux.
Almost always we debug using the logs. Sometimes gdb, which is really helpful.
But, the process I debug runs with more than 70 threads.
Using commands to move through the code is a cumbersome process, installing a GUI front end is not an option.
Is there any way that I can have an IDE like ECLIPSE, Netbeans to debug the process, which is running on this embedded device?

Is there any way that I can have an IDE like ECLIPSE, Netbeans
Yes. Many people debug embedded devices with Eclipse, by using gdbserver.

Related

Headless debugging on Windows

There is a bug that I would like to fix that only occurs on Windows Server without a GUI running. I have set up a Windows Server 2019 machine on Google Compute Engine that reproduces the bug, and would like to debug it.
Ideally, I would like to use gdb, but seeing as the program was built with Visual Studio 2019, gdb can't read the debugging symbols.
I don't have a Windows machine, so using Visual Studio will be difficult. I could set up a VM, but if there's an in-terminal way to do this that would be preferred.
I did a pretty thorough Google search, but it didn't turn up anything. Is there really no Windows solution for debugging C++ code headlessly?
MS has 2 console debuggers called CDB and NTSD so you don't actually need Visual Studio GUI to do the debugging. In fact there are a lot of debugging environments in Windows from MS beside the usual Visual Studio. Just install them in your Windows Server and control them remotely from your terminal
You can also debug MSVC-compiled code with LLDB since the PDB format has been published long time ago and LLVM on Windows does support it. No idea about current LLDB on Linux though
And since you have the source code, sometimes the old-school printf debugger is the best way to analyze the issue
If you can get a Windows VM it'll be much better to do remote debugging. In fact almost all debuggers support that feature including GDB or LLDB, so even if you don't have the source code you can still run any Windows debugger and step through the instructions instead of high-level code lines from a remote machine
An alternative way is to take a memory dump and debug later. After getting the dump file, just drag it into your VS solution or any debugging tool like WinDbg and then select "Start Debugging". Now you can step through instructions/code lines and examine variables' values, or jump to an arbitrary function's stack frame just as if you're really running the malfunctioning app
There are many ways to dump a process' memory. You can set Windows to automatically save a dump file when your app crashes, or just capture memory snapshots manually during runtime. Comparing 2 snapshots is also useful for detecting leaked memory. For more information on how to do that read
Collecting User-Mode Dumps
Steps to Catch a Simple “Crash Dump” of a Crashing Process
There's also an easy way to take a dump of a live process using task manager (or any other similar tools)

JNI c++ Netbeans Debugging

I have a java application that communicates with JNI C++ application. My java application is in eclipse while I am using netbeans for C++ with mingw64 bit compiler. I can not seem to debug JNI part of the application.
I load dll in java application. From netbeans I go to Debug->Attach Debugger select javaw.exe that makes my eclipse stuck and I get exception in eclipse IDE:
org.eclipse.jdi.TimeoutException. Timeout occurred while waiting for packet. occurred creating step request
Is my debugging procedure correct? How does one configure netbeans to debug a JNI application.
This could be because your debugger is stopping all your threads when attaching, and not letting them resume properly afterwards (Not sure why this happens. It seems to only happen on some computers, and work fine on others).
A way to around this that worked for me is - In your C++ debugger configurations, in the debugger tab, tick the "Non-stop mode" checkbox. This will stop your debugger from stopping your threads, and the timeout should stop happening.

Eclipse Remote Debugging CDT tutorial

TL;DR: is there a step by step tutorial to do remote code debugging using Eclipse Neon?
I have the source code in a Linux machine with a GCC dev environment. Normally, I ssh to the box, edit the file, and compile/debug using gdb, and it works, but it is a bit clunky for me.
I am now trying to debug the code from my Windows machine using the latest Eclipse version (Neon as of this writing).
I've tried following the instructions online (like this one), but they all seem to point towards (cross-)compiling the code locally, deploying it remotely and debugging there. This is not what I'm after. I essentially want to use Eclipse as a remote text editor+gdb interface, with the building and compiling being done in the remote system.
I've installed CDT, plus pretty much any plugin remotely related to remote development
Remote System Explorer
Remote Launch
GCC Cross compiler support
Remote (over TCF/TE) Run/Debug Launcher
Direct Remote C++ Debugging
TCF C/C++ Debugger
TM Terminal
So far, I can connect to the remote system, create a Remote Project and edit the source code.
I don't need Eclipse to compile the code (I can do that separately) but I'm unable to debug the code.
Using C/C++ Remote Application fails in many creative ways when trying to find gdb in the remote system.
Using GDB (DSF) Automatic Remote Debugging Launcher ends in a java.lang.NullPointerException, which also invalidates the configuration
Using Direct Remote Debugging Launcher asks about a remote workspace, then complains with "Error with command: gdb --version Cannot run program "gdb": Launching failed"
Remote Application complains about the Process/Image field. Setting it to the binary output doesn't enable the Debug button, so no dice.
TCF is dead in the water. It doesn't recognize the SSH connections I set up on RSE, it asks for the username password (I use public keys) and root password (?!) Even when entering that info, it fails to continue.
On a whim, I tried NetBeans, and followed the instructions here, and got it working in five minutes. The mode I'm following is the "Full Remote Development" according to NetBeans. The reason I'll still need to stick to Eclipse is that it is the dev environment that we use in the company, and it makes little sense to me to add another IDE to do something that Eclipse by all rights should do no problem.
What I find is that the walkthroughs for Eclipse I've found are either
Using plugins that are now either deprecated, not supported or have been completely reworked. Eclipse crashes and burns on these.
Trying to compile locally and deploy remotely, doing things like embedded even, but that's not what I'm looking for.
Using the Eclipse DStore client-server combo, which is essentially an alternative to SSH, but not what I'm looking for either.
I'm then hoping someone has written/found a tutorial that is relatively simple to follow (it is, after all, a relatively simple thing to do, as NetBeans has proven), and that works on any version of Eclipse.
I'll consider using an older version of Eclipse, but if so, please be specific in which version I should use, and which plugins I should install.

Dealing with full-screen crashes on Mac, using command-line LLDB

I'm trying to debug a crash in a full-screen Mac game I'm working on, but when I have LLDB attached it just causes the game to freeze when the crash happens, and I can't get away from the game - I need to do a hard reset on the computer. Is there any kind of tool or preference for doing this? The computer I'm using to reproduce the crash doesn't have multiple monitors.
Can you do two-computer debugging? Set up an ssh account on the game-running machine, log in to it remotely (command line in Terminal) from your not-game-running machine, run command line lldb on your game. (process attach -n <appname>)
In the past, with gdb, Xcode had support for "remote debugging" which was this arrangement (Xcode running on one Mac, your full-screen game on the other) assuming you already had ssh configured correctly. I don't believe Xcode currently supports remote debugging with lldb - I'd encourage you to file a bug report at http://bugreport.apple.com/ registering your need for this feature if it's something you need in your workflow.
I'm afraid I can't think of any answers for you off-hand if you're doing single-machine debugging.

How to do remote debugging with Eclipse CDT without gdbserver?

We're using the Eclipse CDT 5 C++ IDE on Windows to develop a C++ application on a remote AIX host.
Eclipse CDT has the ability to perform remote debugging using gdbserver. Unfortunately, gdbserver is not supported on AIX.
Is anyone familiar with a way to debug remotely using Eclipse CDT without gdbserver? Perhaps using an SSH shell connection to gdb?
finally I got gdb run remotly anyhow now. At the Bug-symbol on the taskbar I took Debug Configurations - GDB Hardware Debugging.
In Main C/C++ Applications I set the full path on the Samba share of the executable (X:\abin\vlmi9506). I also set a linked folder on X:\abin in the project. Then I modified my batch-script in GDB Setup. It's not directly calling gdb in the plink-session but a unix-shell-script, which opens gdb. By this I have the possibility to set some unix environment-variables for the program before doing debug. The call in my batch:
plink.exe prevoax1 -l suttera -pw XXXXX -i /proj/user/dev/suttera/vl/9506/test/vlmi9506ddd.run 20155 dev o m
In the unix script I started gdb with the command line params from eclipse, that I found in my former tryals. The call in the shell command looks like this:
gdb -nw -i mi -cd=$LVarPathExec $LVarPathExec/vlmi9506
Then IBM just gives gdb 6.0 for AIX. I found version 6.8 in the net at http://www.perzl.org/aix/index.php?n=Main.Gdb. Our Admin installed it.
I can now step through the program and watch variables. I even can write gdb-commands directly in the console-view. yabadabadooooooo
Hope that helps to others as well. Can not tell, what was really the winner-action.
But each answer gives more new questions. Now I got 3 of them.
When I start the debug config I have to click restart in the toolbar to come really in the main procedure. Is it possible to come directly in main without restarting?
On AIX our programs are first preprocessed for embedded sql. The preprocessed c-source is put in another directory. When I duble-click the line to set a breakpoint, I get the warning "unresolved breakpoint" and in the gdb-console I see, that the break is set to the preprocessed source which is wrong. Is it possible to set the breakpoints on the right source?
We are using CICS on AIX. With the xldb-Debugger and the CDCN-command of CICS we manage that debugging is started, when we come in our programs. Is it possible to get that remotely (in plink) with gdb-eclipse as well?
I wouldn't normally take a shot in the dark on a question I can't really test the answer to, but since this one has sat around for a day, I'll give it a shot. It seems from looking at:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/TM_and_RSE_FAQ#How_can_I_do_Remote_Debugging_with_CDT.3F
...that even if the CDT has changed since that wiki page was made, you should still be able to change the debug command to:
ssh remotehost gdb
instead of using TM which uses gdbserver. This will probably be slightly slower than the TM remote debugging since that actually uses a local gdb, but on the other hand this way you won't have to NFS or SMB mount your source code to make it available to the local debugger (and if you're on a LAN it probably won't matter anyhow).
There's also a reference TCF implementation for linux, which you may or may not have any luck recompiling for AIX, but it allows for remote debugging if gdbserver is otherwise not available:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/DSDP/TM/TCF_FAQ
tried also to remotly debug an aix-appl with windows eclipse-cdt-gdb.
Got blocked at the end with unix/windows path-problems. Maybe my result can help u a little further - maybe you already got it work. I'm interested in your comment. asked on eclipse news portal- following the answer of martin oberhuber (thanks again) tried dsp dd (also blocked with path problem) and set an request in eclipse bugzilla.
here the link to news:
http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/article.php?id=406&group=eclipse.dsdp.tm
Here my bugzilla:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=252758
At the moment we still debug localy with xldb but I am trying ddd-gdb at the moment. At least locally gdb is running.