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Re: debugging a bootloader
Hello all,
On Tuesday 06 December 2005 19:16, Paul Gilliam wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 December 2005 06:02, Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 03:01:37PM +0100, Carlos Mitidieri wrote:
Thank you.
> > > I have a doubt on the applicability of gdb:
> > > Is it possible to use gdb in connection with the accompanying simulator
> > > to debug a bootloader (like u-boot) for an arm
> > > Thank you very much for your attention.
> >
> > Probably not; you need a simulator that will provide all the hardware
> > your boot loader expects.
>
> But you *may* be able to debug *part* of it with the simulator.
>
> But that's just a guess
> -=# Paul #=-
I have actually tried to debug u-boot with the arm-eabi-gdb target (therefore
gdb-6.4) in connection with the simulator. In accord to Paul guesses, it was
possible to run some part of the code. Unfortunately, the arm-eabi-gdb itself
went through a seg-fault before any problem could be devised in the u-boot.
I then used gdb (configured as "i586-suse-linux") to look at arm-eabi-gdb, so
obtaining the following outcome:
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x081405b8 in get_frame_pc (frame=0x0) at frame.c:1321
1321 frame.c: No such file or directory.
in frame.c
The steps to reproduce this are as follows:
1. Load arm-eabi-gdb in the gdb
2. Run arm-eabi.gdb
3. In arm-eabi-gdb issue the commands:
3.1. (gdb) file u-boot.elf
3.2. (gdb) target sim
3.3. (gdb) load
3.4. (gdb) break start_armboot
3.5. (gdb) run
3.6. (gdb) step
repeat "step" a few times, and you get the seg-fault.
If somebody would like to take a look at this, but is not willing to build all
the required cross tools and bootloader, please let me know and I will
happily send you the binaries.
As a last remark, I have tried another versions from gdb to build the
arm-eabi-gdb, and this problem appeared on every one. Also, many versions of
the cross tools were tested together, with equal results.
Sincerely
Carl