Local And Remote Debugging With GDB

As a debugger, GDB is a veritable Swiss Army knife. And just like exploring all of the non-obvious uses of a those knives, your initial response to the scope of GDB’s feature set is likely to be one of bewilderment, subsequent confusion, and occasional laughter. This is an understandable reaction in the case of the Swiss Army knife as one is unlikely to be in the midst of an army campaign or trapped in the wilderness. Similarly, it takes a tricky debugging session to really learn to appreciate GDB’s feature set.

If you have already used GDB to debug some code, it was likely wrapped in the comfort blanket of an IDE. This is of course one way to use GDB, but limits the available features to what the IDE exposes. Fortunately, the command line interface (CLI) of GDB has no such limitations. Learning the CLI GDB commands also has the advantage that one can perform that critical remote debug session even in the field via an SSH session over the 9600 baud satellite modem inside your Swiss Army knife, Cyber Edition.

Have I carried this analogy too far? Probably. But learning the full potential of GDB is well worth your time so today, let’s dive in to sharpen our digital toolsets.

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Hands-On: GreatFET Is An Embedded Tool That Does It All

There’s a new embedded hacking tool on the scene that gives you an interactive Python interface for a speedy chip on a board with oodles of GPIO, the ability to masquerade as different USB devices, and a legacy of tricks up its sleeve. This is the GreatFET, the successor to the much loved GoodFET.

I first heard this board was close to launch almost a year ago and asked for an early look. When shipping began at the end of April, they sent me one. Let’s dig in for a hands-on review of the GreatFET from Great Scott Gadgets.

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