About debugging ROS

[Xu Liu]

I am just a new person who wants to debug ROS, so my questions may be stupid.

I have checked http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Debugging . It seems the
main debugging way is "Debugging through text messages" (I think it is
more like "checking logs"). If I want to use GDB, I have to use QEMU.
Would you please tell me is Kdbg the only way to debug code in VMWare
or VirtualBox?

And if I want to debug ReactOS, do I have to install QEMU or VMWare or
VirtualBox? Using "make install" in RosBE can generate many binary
files. Is there any build-in way to start ROS from these bin files
without any virtual machine?

Thank you in advance.

[Olaf Siejka]

Hiya

Regarding gdb, i will skip that question in favor of more experienced team
members.

Regarding make install - it depends on where do you want to install ReactOS.
We use virtual machines for the sake of simplicity as well as good
repeatability of results and errors. You can of course try to install bootcd
on real hardware, but we dont recommend this way of testing at least until
you know what are you trying to do. Apart from that, ReactOS is too unstable
to be pushed and used on a production hardware, hence some dedicated testing
machine should be used.

Please excuse me if my answer was not precise, but the question was too
general.

Regards

2011/1/30 Xu Liu [e-mail]
> I am just a new person who wants to debug ROS, so my questions may be
> stupid.
>
> I have checked http://www.reactos.org/wiki/Debugging . It seems the
> main debugging way is "Debugging through text messages" (I think it is
> more like "checking logs"). If I want to use GDB, I have to use QEMU.
> Would you please tell me is Kdbg the only way to debug code in VMWare
> or VirtualBox?
>
> And if I want to debug ReactOS, do I have to install QEMU or VMWare or
> VirtualBox? Using "make install" in RosBE can generate many binary
> files. Is there any build-in way to start ROS from these bin files
> without any virtual machine?
>
> Thank you in advance.

[Timo Kreuzer]

Hi,

In theory you can also use winDbg for debugging. You need to compile 
reactos with KDBG = 0 and _WINKD_ = 1
Then you need a connection between WinDbg and kdcom. You can use com0com 
and map the VM serial port to one
end of the pair and connect winDbg to the other. This works quite well 
with qemu and VBox.
after WinDbg is connected you should be able to do the basic stuff, like 
stepping, viewing and changing registers, dumping memory. What not works 
is attaching to processes, as WinDbg needs symbols for that. so you 
would need to compile with MSVC, which is work in progress. This 
currently limits its usability quite a lot.

I used it only on x64, so I can't say how good it works on x86. But 
afaik it works quite well, except that connecting can be a little tricky 
in the beginning.

Timo

[Olaf Siejka]

Last time i tried WinDBG, it was not possible to determine process which was
using the memory location given in backtrace. Missing MM functionality. Can
provide bug number to anyone interested.

Regards

2011/1/30 Timo Kreuzer [e-mail]
> Hi,
>
> In theory you can also use winDbg for debugging. You need to compile
> reactos with KDBG = 0 and _WINKD_ = 1
> Then you need a connection between WinDbg and kdcom. You can use com0com
> and map the VM serial port to one
> end of the pair and connect winDbg to the other. This works quite well with
> qemu and VBox.
> after WinDbg is connected you should be able to do the basic stuff, like
> stepping, viewing and changing registers, dumping memory. What not works is
> attaching to processes, as WinDbg needs symbols for that. so you would need
> to compile with MSVC, which is work in progress. This currently limits its
> usability quite a lot.
>
> I used it only on x64, so I can't say how good it works on x86. But afaik
> it works quite well, except that connecting can be a little tricky in the
> beginning.
>
> Timo
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Xu Liu]

Thank you guys. I will try VirtualBox firstly.

On 1/31/11, Olaf Siejka [e-mail] wrote:
> Last time i tried WinDBG, it was not possible to determine process which was
> using the memory location given in backtrace. Missing MM functionality. Can
> provide bug number to anyone interested.
>
> Regards
>
> 2011/1/30 Timo Kreuzer [e-mail]
> > Hi,
> >
> > In theory you can also use winDbg for debugging. You need to compile
> > reactos with KDBG = 0 and _WINKD_ = 1
> > Then you need a connection between WinDbg and kdcom. You can use com0com
> > and map the VM serial port to one
> > end of the pair and connect winDbg to the other. This works quite well
> > with
> > qemu and VBox.
> > after WinDbg is connected you should be able to do the basic stuff, like
> > stepping, viewing and changing registers, dumping memory. What not works
> > is
> > attaching to processes, as WinDbg needs symbols for that. so you would
> > need
> > to compile with MSVC, which is work in progress. This currently limits its
> > usability quite a lot.
> >
> > I used it only on x64, so I can't say how good it works on x86. But afaik
> > it works quite well, except that connecting can be a little tricky in the
> > beginning.
> >
> > Timo
> >
> > Ros-dev mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev