I'm working on a STM32H753 with STM32CubeIDE 1.4.0.
I have created an empty "STM32 Cortex-M C/C++ Application project". My executable is built by a separate makefile (arm-none-eabi-gcc based). I only use STM32CubeIDE to debug through a remote GDB server.
This setup has been working fine for a long time. Now I changed the memory mapping of my code. Before the code was executing from ITCM RAM and now I moved it to AXi-SRAM. Of course the code is copied from Flash to RAM by a kind of bootloader.
Now breakpoints seem to not work properly. They still work fine in the bootloader (in Flash) but as long as I set a bkpt in AXI SRAM the code doesn't stop. I checked that the assembly is correct. When I break in my code, I can see the correct assembly at the correct adress.
With the previous memory mapping, setting bkpt in ITCM RAM was working fine.
I tried to set bkpt through the GUI and through GDB commands it's the same.
Is there a particularity or a limitation regarding bkpt in AXI SRAM ?
thank you
I have had problems with breakpoints in RAM as soon as the application enables ICache (SCB_EnableICache). For debugging, I comment out that line of code so the ICache isn't enabled. For my setup (cube ide 1.8) this fixes the issue and I am able to set breakpoints and single step through code. For release candidate code, I use that call to enable the ICache.
Related
I would like to set a memory breakpoints on access in windbg in the kernel mode debugger
I want the debugger breaks everytime a specific module in usermode is hit with the kernel debugger.
but I've read somewhere its impossible to set it, in order to make a memory breakpoints I have to write a plugin to make it
I tried to use SDbgExt plugin with the !vprotect command, but it fails to set memory bp
If I have to write a plugin to allow memory bp in kernel mode It has to be a driver?
I've read some chapters in windows internals book, but it doesn't help me at all.
I couldn't find too much info how to start deal with it
You can set breakpoints on user mode addresses from kernel mode. The only thing you should take care is to switch to the right process with ".process /i " command
If it is a one-off breakpoint -- that is, you are content with process being destroyed by debugging -- zero out the entire module using e command (edit memory). Set the whole thing to cc (which is int 3 as far as I remember)... zeros will do as well. You will break as soon as you touch any of the module's code.
Next step, remember where you were (relative to the module) and set a proper breakpoint.
Hope that helps.
(editing) Do you have full symbols? If you do, did you try bm module!*
Sounds like you want to set a "breakpoint on access" but instead of specifying an address you want to specify a range? I have never seen it done in windbg. The BA breakpoints uses HW debug registers instead of inserting INTs like SW breakpoints so this is definitely HW platform specific.
I have done this on an ARM chipset once using a HW debugger. ETM on ARM allows you to set triggers on address ranges.
I am trying to remotely debug a linux kernel running on an arm cortex-a9 target using jtag probe and gdb.
I can connect to the kernel and halt it with gdb. I am able to set breakpoints in the kernel code and gdb confirms there placement as well but the problem is that once I start the execution and issue a continue command, the breakpoints are never hit and the kernel continues to run....
Please help me out in this regard.
Thanks.
As pointed in this thread, you should set the breakpoints as hardware breakpoints, namely - using the hbreak command. Only then the breakpoints will be hit.
For anyone reading this, the debugger will not break with software breakpoints by default, see the relevant doc:
"If the architecture that you are using supports the kernel option CONFIG_STRICT_KERNEL_RWX, you should consider turning it off. This option will prevent the use of software breakpoints because it marks certain regions of the kernel’s memory space as read-only. If kgdb supports it for the architecture you are using, you can use hardware breakpoints if you desire to run with the CONFIG_STRICT_KERNEL_RWX option turned on, else you need to turn off this option."
at https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.14/dev-tools/kgdb.html
Disable RWX and recompile, then software breakpoints should work (they started working normally here after this)
Is some cases, KASLR (Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization) can be the culprit.
Even though you setup hbreak, the actual code location can be different from the address seen from the .elf file when using KASLR, so either pass --append "nokaslr" to the kernel boot argument, or configure the kernel with RANDOMIZE_BASE=n. This applies for arm64 and x86_64. (maybe other architectures too).
I am developing a STM32F2 device using GCC 4.7.4 and a Lauterbach Combiprobe JTAG debugger. In my code, I have the following statement to always break at a certain spot for testing purposes:
asm volatile ("BKPT #0");
This is the only breakpoint. When I run the program, I can see that my program reaches the breakpoint, but I cannot step beyond this breakpoint using my JTAG debugger. Instead, I have to move the PC counter past this instruction to get the program to execute.
This was working in the past, but I am at a loss to figure out why the behavior is different now. Any clues or hints would be appreciated.
There are so many broken JTAG debuggers. Probably you installed an update for the JTAG adapter?
When you have GDB as Debugger you might check if you can add a macro set PC=PC+4 to a button or key. But if this is possible depends on your IDE.
There is no general rule what happens with the program counter if you have a breakpoint instruction in you application code. Some CPUs stop at the address containing the breakpoint instruction, others stop after the breakpoint instruction.
Since you use the tag "lauterbach" I assume you are using a TRACE32 debugger from Lauterbach.
If you think the debuggers behavior was different in the past, I think you should contact the Lauterbach support.
For now you can workaround the issue with the following TRACE32 command
Break.Set T:0x1000 /Program /CMD "Register.Set PP r(PP)+2"
(where 0x1000 stands for the address, where your BKPT instruction is located.)
Before some time i coded my own little db editor program, i was coding it from the zero using Win API's so its not very small project.
It was working fine on all OS till now, i have Win 7 x64 with all latest updates and my application is crashing with 0xC000005 exception because of some of the Heap functions(HeapAlloc or HeapFree, i use nothing else), i tried replacing HeapAlloc & HeapFree with VirtualAlloc and VirtualFree and it was all fine, but i dont want to use the virtual memory....
Something else, i tried to attach with debugger to trace the problem, but when i attach debugger its not crashing, then i tried to display MessageBox to trace where it crashes, but when i display MessageBox its not crashing too....
My application is running as 32bit process.
Coded in C.
Anyone had similar problem ?
Firstly, both HeapAlloc and VirtualAlloc allocate virtual memory.
My guess as to what is happening is that you are writing past the boundary of the allocated memory. The reason why this does not work with HeapAlloc is that it allocates exactly the amount of memory you request. With VirtualAlloc, the size returned is the requested size rounded up to the next page boundary. In your case, this gave a bit more leeway (even though your code is still doing the wrong thing).
In terms of why it has been working so far: you just got lucky. Look carefully at the code accessing the allocated memory and if you get stuck, post the relevant part up here. If the debugger isn't helping and the bug is easily reproducible, just comment out parts of the code until you locate the line causing the crash.
Have you attached it to Debug version of your application? If the problem does not appear in debug version then you should check what warnings (on highest level) generate your code, maybe you will find some uninitialized variables. If nothing here, then you might use some static analysis tool to help with finding bugs - like PVS-Studio http://www.viva64.com/.
You can also compile Release version with debugging information enabled, this way when problem arrises you should be able to attach to your application with debugger and see callstack with function names. To make it easier to debug, disable code optimizations.
You can also try gflags from windows debugger tools, this program will trigger breakpoint each time you write outside of buffer boundary. This is really helpfull tool because not all buffer overruns end up with exceptions. Use it on application with debugging information enabled, and preferably with code optimizations off. To enable gflags for your app use:
gflags /p /enable myapp.exe /full
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff543097%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)
I am wondering which debugging tool I can use for an assembly program and how to use it.
I have written a simple bootloader in assembly. However, it is not quite working properly as I wished, even though I think the logic is correct. So, I am trying to use a debugger so that I can step through the bootloader, checking the register status and etc.
I tried GDB on Ubuntu, compiling my .asm to .elf and .o (Do I need to do it? If yes, what is the next step?) Also, I read that there is an internal debugger in Bochs simulator, but I can't quite find any document how to use it. I also have Visual Studio 2010, windbg, but I don't know how to use it for .asm file debugging.
If you have done this before, it would be an easy answer. Any help would be really appreciated.
Sincerely
If you want to debug bootloader code, you obviously need to run it in the same environment that the code itself is going to run in. As I'm sure you already know, bootloader code is executed in real mode once the BIOS finishes doing the POST. The bootloader is then loaded into memory at 7c00h and a jump to that address is executed.
Obviously, this kind of environment cannot be reliably emulated once you've got your computer running and a "real" operating system already loaded, since by that time your CPU is in protected mode (or long mode, if it's AMD64). Your only option at this point is to use QEMU or Bochs in order to emulate a real PC inside your operating system. I've used Bochs to debug some bootloader code I've written in the past and it worked quite well. Check the manual pages for more detailed instructions.