1.4. GDB Tutorial¶

GDB is like a swiss-army knife to a C/C++ developer. You can step through your code line-by-line, view call stacks, view assembly, and most importantly— find the source of a bug! If you haven’t used a debugger before, take the time now, during this easy assignment, to learn the basic tricks of the debugger. Learn how to set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables. If you know how to debug using gdb you can skip this section.

Consider the following code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

void log_msg(char* string) {
    printf(string);
}

void my_broken_function()
{
    int a = 10;
    int *p = NULL;
    printf("Value of a is %d\n", a);
    *p = 1;
}

int main()
{
    log_msg("Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!\n");
    log_msg("Brace for impact! We are about to crash!\n");
    my_broken_function();
}

Compile and run the code with the following:

gcc -Wall -g -o program program.c
./program

You will see the following output:

Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!
Brace for impact! We are about to crash!
Value of a is 10
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Let’s see what happened here. Start the program under gdb using:
```
gdb ./program
```

Run the program using run command in gdb:

(gdb) run
Starting program: /mnt/castor/seas_home/s/stahmed/ese532_code/hw1/tutorial/program 
Missing separate debuginfos, use: zypper install glibc-debuginfo-2.31-7.30.x86_64
Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!
Brace for impact! We are about to crash!
Value of a is 10

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x0000000000400556 in my_broken_function () at program.c:13
13	    *p = 1;

The program has exited with a segfault. While in gdb restart the program using file ./program

(gdb) file ./program
A program is being debugged already.
Are you sure you want to change the file? (y or n) y
Load new symbol table from "./program"? (y or n) y
Reading symbols from ./program...

Stop at the beginning using start:

(gdb) start
The program being debugged has been started already.
Start it from the beginning? (y or n) y
Temporary breakpoint 1 at 0x400563: file program.c, line 18.
Starting program: /mnt/castor/seas_home/s/stahmed/ese532_code/hw1/tutorial/program 
Missing separate debuginfos, use: zypper install glibc-debuginfo-2.31-7.30.x86_64

Temporary breakpoint 1, main () at program.c:18
18	    log_msg("Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!\n");

Step to the next line using step:

(gdb) step
log_msg (string=0x400630 "Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!\n") at program.c:5
5	   printf(string);

Find out where you are by using list:

(gdb) list
#include <stdio.h> 
#include <stdlib.h>

void log_msg(char* string) {
  printf(string);
}

void my_broken_function()
{
   int a = 10;

Looks like we are inside the log_msg function. Step out of the function using finish:

(gdb) finish
Run till exit from #0  log_msg (string=0x400630 "Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!\n")
    at program.c:5
Welcome to the wonderful world of segfaults!
main () at program.c:19
19	    log_msg("Brace for impact! We are about to crash!\n");

Looks like we are at the next log_msg. We’d like to step over it. Use next:

(gdb) next
Brace for impact! We are about to crash!
20	    my_broken_function();

That function looks suspicious. We can step into it, but let’s set a breakpoint inside that function using break program.c:12 and continue to the breakpoint using continue:

(gdb) break program.c:12
Breakpoint 2 at 0x40053e: file program.c, line 12.
(gdb) continue
Continuing.

Breakpoint 2, my_broken_function () at program.c:12
12	    printf("Value of a is %d\n", a);

Let’s inspect the stack frame.

Use info frame to see information on the current stack frame:

(gdb) info frame
Stack level 0, frame at 0x7fffffffdd90:
rip = 0x40053e in my_broken_function (program.c:12); saved rip = 0x400581
called by frame at 0x7fffffffdda0
source language c.
Arglist at 0x7fffffffdd80, args: 
Locals at 0x7fffffffdd80, Previous frame's sp is 0x7fffffffdd90
Saved registers:
rbp at 0x7fffffffdd80, rip at 0x7fffffffdd88

Use info locals to see the local variables and their values in the stack frame:
```
(gdb) info locals
a = 10
p = 0x0
```
Use info args to see the arguments to the function:
```
(gdb) info args
No arguments.
```
If you did not already know where the bug was, this frame information should help you decipher why the program crashed.

You can also print values using print:
```
(gdb) print a
$1 = 10
```

Let’s run till the segfault now using continue:

(gdb) continue
Continuing.
Value of a is 10

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x0000000000400556 in my_broken_function () at program.c:13
13	    *p = 1;

We can see from there gdb output, the segfault happens at line 13. However, if you are working on a large codebase, location of the segfault might not be trivial. Use backtrace to find out how you got to the segfault:
```
(gdb) backtrace
#0  0x0000000000400556 in my_broken_function () at program.c:13
#1  0x0000000000400581 in main () at program.c:20
```

Assuming you couldn’t figure out the cause of the crash and asked your friend for help. The friend compiled the program in their own machine and surprisingly ran the program without the segfault! May be if the friend ran with the exact replica of the process you were running, the segfault would show up. You can do that by supplying your friend with a core dump. A core dump is a copy of process memory. You will not be able to do the following in Biglab since core dumps are disabled there, however the steps are listed here for your reference. Your machine may be not configured to produce core dumps. Refer to this blog post on how to setup your personal machine for core dumps.

Now run your program. It now segfaults by saying core dumped:

Welcome to the wonderful world of SEG Faults!
Brace for impact! We are about to crash!
Value of a is 10
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

You will also see there is a file in your directory called core.*. This is the core dump. Now you can run gdb with this core dump using gdb ./program <your core dump file> and it will reproduce the state your program was in until the crash:

[ec2-user@ip-172-31-38-93 ~]$ gdb program core.1720
GNU gdb (GDB) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0.1-30.amzn2.0.3
Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "aarch64-redhat-linux-gnu".
Type "show configuration" for configuration details.
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>.
Find the GDB manual and other documentation resources online at:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/documentation/>.
For help, type "help".
Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word"...
Reading symbols from program...done.
[New LWP 1720]
Core was generated by `./program'.
Program terminated with signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
#0  0x0000000000400610 in my_broken_function () at program.c:9
9	    *p = 1;
(gdb)

This concludes a basic introduction to debugging using gdb. Following are some resources that you may find helpful:

ESE532 Handouts Fall 2021

1.4. GDB Tutorial¶