I am using gdb to debug NS-2 which is a simulator for network protocols. It takes an .tcl file as input and interpret it. [I think it is an interpreter.]
Some of the code is written in tcl (events and creation of network components) and some in C++ (especially Packet Formats, Agents etc.).
I have created an Agent in C++ and i want to stop it at some function call so that i can see the stack trace and find which other classes have been called before it.
This is what i have done:
There was some error in one of my MyAgent::function and it was giving Segmentation Fault and gdb was stopping there automatically. I could then see the stack trace. I rectified the error.
Now when i run
gdb ./ns
b MyAgent::function()
/*
When i press TAB after writing "b MyA" it gives me all functions
of my class :). when i press enter after above command --
it asks me "Breakpoint on future shared library load" and i say Yes.
I hope this is ok ??
*/
r myfiles/myWireless.tcl
Now it runs and do not stop anywhere. :(
I am sure that this function is being called, because when that Segmentation fault was occuring, it was stopping at that function.
Thanks
You can add a breakpoint in that function:
(gdb) break MyAgent::function()
You must make sure to compile with whatever options are necessary to get debug symbols. On GCC, use the -g or -ggdb options.
You need the -args option to specify the tcl script that will be executed.
Run gdb like this:
gdb -args ./ns path/to/tcl/script.tcl
To enable debug flag to c++ code, if have not done it already, re-configure your ns2 instalation with:
./configure --enable-debug ;# plus any other flags you use for configuring
make clean
make -j 3 ;# -j for faster compiling
make install ;# optional
You can also use the --with-tcldebug=..., for debugging tcl code (You need to install tcldebug first for this option)
Related
I'd like to define a command which does X under gdb-multiarch, but prints out a helpful message when run under normal gdb. How can my script determine which of the two its run under?
Why? When I start gdb-multiarch, I can bind to a qemu-arm session. When I try that in gdb, I get bizarre errors. It's easy to forget and run gdb (and not -multiarch), and I want to my bind-to-qemu tell me "This must be run under gdb-multiarch".
Your question presumes that there is some difference between gdb and gdb-multiarch, but there doesn't have be any such difference.
Presumably on the OS you are using the gdb and gdb-multiarch are configured differently, with gdb only supporting native architecture, while gdb-multiarch supports cross-architecture debugging.
Presumably what you actually want to detect is that the target-architecture you need (arm ?) is / isn't supported by the current binary.
In the bind-to-qemu user-defined function, you can try to set architecture arm.
If that errors out, the rest of bind-to-qemu should not execute.
I need to set breakpoints in a cpp source file. The current setup to call the cpp target is through a shell target, with additional dependencies, which means it's not feasible to directly invoke the cpp target in Linux console.
As I searched online, there are generally two ways:
invoke gdb in shell
pause in cpp, let gdb connect to the process
I don't know how to do the first way, so I choose the second way here.
I insert sleep(30) in cpp file, then in another terminal I open gdb and connect to the running process. I confirm the gdb can stop at the sleep() function in gdb. But the problem is the gdb seems only knowing the sleep function context, without knowing the call site of the sleep function. If I force setting breakpoint in the main program, gdb shows no such file. If I continue in gdb, it will not stop at any breakpoints I set in cpp file.
You need to compile the program with debug symbols. Otherwise GDB will only know of symbols in the dynamic symbol table. Turning off optimizations also helps debugging. So add the flags -O0 -g.
If this is not possible, you'll have have to step through the disassembly (Ctrl+X, 2).
I am new to Linux space.
My project creates 'so' (akin to our dll's) which is used by an executable.
Currently to debug, I invoke gdb -tui Which puts me into the gdb terminal where I put break points and do the r with parameters ... and debug.
Everything was fine, until now where the entire architecture has been changed.
Now to run our code, we execute a command
$ java -jar ... and a lot many parameters.
The jar files etc do not belong to us.
I am yet to find out what executable is called, or the code flow.
Question :
Is there a way to invoke gdb command from within my source code ?
say
MyClass::myFunc()
{
some calls
<THE GDB COMMAND>
What I am looking at is, once I place my 'so' in the path and execute the said java command, the gdb is invoked the moment it hits my function.
The solution provided here wasn't clear.
Invoke and control GDB from c++
Is there any gcc option I can set that will give me the line number of the segmentation fault?
I know I can:
Debug line by line
Put printfs in the code to narrow down.
Edits:
bt / where on gdb give No stack.
Helpful suggestion
I don't know of a gcc option, but you should be able to run the application with gdb and then when it crashes, type where to take a look at the stack when it exited, which should get you close.
$ gdb blah
(gdb) run
(gdb) where
Edit for completeness:
You should also make sure to build the application with debug flags on using the -g gcc option to include line numbers in the executable.
Another option is to use the bt (backtrace) command.
Here's a complete shell/gdb session
$ gcc -ggdb myproj.c
$ gdb a.out
gdb> run --some-option=foo --other-option=bar
(gdb will say your program hit a segfault)
gdb> bt
(gdb prints a stack trace)
gdb> q
[are you sure, your program is still running]? y
$ emacs myproj.c # heh, I know what the error is now...
Happy hacking :-)
You can get gcc to print you a stacktrace when your program gets a SEGV signal, similar to how Java and other friendlier languages handle null pointer exceptions. See my answer here for more details:
how to generate a stacktace when my C++ app crashes ( using gcc compiler )
The nice thing about this is you can just leave it in your code; you don't need to run things through gdb to get the nice debug output.
If you compile with -g and follow the instructions there, you can use a command-line tool like addr2line to get file/line information from the output.
Run it under valgrind.
you also need to build with debug flags on -g
You can also open the core dump with gdb (you need -g though).
If all the preceding suggestions to compile with debugging (-g) and run under a debugger (gdb, run, bt) are not working for you, then:
Elementary: Maybe you're not running under the debugger, you're just trying to analyze the postmortem core dump. (If you start a debug session, but don't run the program, or if it exits, then when you ask for a backtrace, gdb will say "No stack" -- because there's no running program at all. Don't forget to type "run".) If it segfaulted, don't forget to add the third argument (core) when you run gdb, otherwise you start in the same state, not attached to any particular process or memory image.
Difficult: If your program is/was really running but your gdb is saying "No stack" perhaps your stack pointer is badly smashed. In which case, you may be a buffer overflow problem somewhere, severe enough to mash your runtime state entirely. GCC 4.1 supports the ProPolice "Stack Smashing Protector" that is enabled with -fstack-protector-all. It can be added to GCC 3.x with a patch.
There is no method for GCC to provide this information, you'll have to rely on an external program like GDB.
GDB can give you the line where a crash occurred with the "bt" (short for "backtrace") command after the program has seg faulted. This will give you not only the line of the crash, but the whole stack of the program (so you can see what called the function where the crash happened).
The No stack problem seems to happen when the program exit successfully.
For the record, I had this problem because I had forgotten a return in my code, which made my program exit with failure code.
I want to make gdb rpm from gdb.spec file using rpmbuld which I can do without any problem but now in addition to that i want GDB to be complied with symbols so that when gdb is being attached to itself I should know the exact call flow and where exactly its failing.
Reason for doing this exercise is I am creating the application which will internally invoke gdb by calling gdb_init and going down failing with segmentation fault in gdb source code.
The easiest way to prevent stripping debug symbols
in rpm build is to add exit 0 at the end of %install.
The symbols are stripped by commands that are appended
to the %install scriptlet. Adding "exit 0" prevents the
commands from being run.
I don't know how you would to this with rpmbuild, but building gdb is really easy. Just get official source package, unpack it, then configure this way:
CFLAGS="-g3 -O0" path/to/gdb/source/configure --prefix path/to/your/installation/directory
make
make install
O0 is not strictly necessary, but if you want to debug a gdb crash, it will help.