{"id":499,"date":"2022-07-27T12:45:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-27T19:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/?p=499"},"modified":"2022-09-15T18:04:05","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T01:04:05","slug":"installing-development-builds-of-virtualbox-with-gdb-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/VisualKernel\/documentation\/vboxdev\/","title":{"rendered":"Installing Development builds of VirtualBox with GDB Support"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent versions of VirtualBox support debugging the target directly (i.e. without the use of kgdboe<\/strong> or kgdboe<\/strong>) with a built-in GDB stub<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, this functionality is only available in the development snapshots of VirtualBox<\/strong> and requires disabling the Hyper-V platform on the host.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In order to debug a Linux kernel running inside a VirtualBox VM, follow the steps below:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Download and install the latest development snapshot<\/a> of VirtualBox (not a test build). You can also get the latest version successfully tested with VisualKernel here<\/a>. \"\"<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. When the VM is stopped, run the following commands:\n
    vboxmanage [.vbox file path] setextradata VBoxInternal\/DBGC\/gdb\/Provider TCP\r\nvboxmanage [.vbox file path] setextradata VBoxInternal\/DBGC\/gdb\/StubType Gdb\r\nvboxmanage [.vbox file path] setextradata VBoxInternal\/DBGC\/gdb\/Port 1234<\/pre>\n
    Replace 1234 with the port number on the host<\/strong> that you would like to use for debugging.<\/li>\n
  3. Start the VM. Once it loads, start a gdb<\/strong> executable on the host<\/strong> and run the following command:\n
    target remote :1234<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    You will now be able to debug the target kernel using VirtualBox.<\/p>\n
    Limitations<\/h2>\n
    The VirtualBox GDB stub has the following known limitations:<\/p>\n
      \n
    1. It is only supported in the development snapshots of VirtualBox. Stable releases do not include it.<\/li>\n
    2. It does not work when the host<\/strong> has Hyper-V virtualization enabled. If you encounter strange debugging behavior, make sure Hyper-V is disabled:\"\"<\/a><\/li>\n
    3. The VirtualBox GDB stub has higher latency than the VMWare or QEMU gdb stubs. Expect a ~1 second delay after hitting each breakpoint. If the overall debugging performance is too slow, try disabling the printk()<\/strong> hook in VisualKernel settings, as it involves setting a breakpoint.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      Integration with Visual Studio<\/h2>\n
      See this tutorial<\/a> for detailed steps on debugging a VirtualBox guest kernel with Visual Studio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      The recent versions of VirtualBox support debugging the target directly (i.e. without the use of kgdboe or kgdboe) with a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[25,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}