Debug with VMware and gdb

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Bonfra
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Debug with VMware and gdb

Post by Bonfra »

I've always tested my code using QEMU and it works perfectly but trying to boot the image with Virtualbox or VMware always causes some problems with the bootloader. I wanted to debug the code using gdb but I can't figure out how to connect to the VM.
I followed this and some other guides all saying the same things.
Whenever I boot up the machine VMware hangs forever (finally I need to kill it with the task manager) and gdb prints this error:

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(gdb) target remote localhost:8864
Remote debugging using localhost:8864
Ignoring packet error, continuing...
warning: unrecognized item "timeout" in "qSupported" response
Ignoring packet error, continuing...
Remote replied unexpectedly to 'vMustReplyEmpty': timeout
(gdb)
Regards, Bonfra.
Octocontrabass
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Re: Debug with VMware and gdb

Post by Octocontrabass »

If you set debugOnStartGuest32 to true, you need to attach a 32-bit debugger to port 8832. There is no debugOnStartGuest64.
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Bonfra
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Re: Debug with VMware and gdb

Post by Bonfra »

Octocontrabass wrote:There is no debugOnStartGuest64.
Guide wrote:Note that there is also 64-bit support, just replace 32 with 64 in the above options
Infact dumping the log file I found this lines:

Code: Select all

VMware Workstation is listening for debug connection on port 8864.
    (gdb) target remote localhost:8864
    (lldb) gdb-remote 8864
The guide says that if I set the vmx file "debugStub.listen.guest64" to "true" I can use port 8864 to debug.
Also since debugOnStartGuest64 breaks on the first instruction of the BIOS, I didn't enable it. I just run gdb a second before starting the VM so it catches up kinda immediately on the breakpoint I specified before.
Regards, Bonfra.
norey
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Re: Debug with VMware and gdb

Post by norey »

@Bonfra, were you able to successfully connect via gdb?

I'm facing the same issue. gdb 15.1 and Workstation 17.6
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