Int 3 breakpoint linux software

Debugging kernel and modules via gdb the linux kernel. It is provided for general information only and should not be relied upon as complete or accurate. Making debugger in golang part iii golangspec medium. When the processor executes the int 3 instruction, control is passed to the breakpoint interrupt handler, which in the case of linux signals the process with a sigtrap. Does executing an int 3 interrupt stop the entire process. You can see this process in the diagram below, where we overwrite the first byte of the mov instruction with 0xcc, which is the instruction encoding for int 3. A breakpoint is defined by overwriting the breakpoint address with an int3 opcode 0xcc. If there is no debugger loaded the handler will either ignore it or call the os to take some kind of error action like raising a signal perhaps sigtrap. When written in assembly language, the instruction is written like this. The int 3 instruction generates a special one byte opcode cc that is intended for. It makes an extremely powerful tool for fixing problems in program code.

This is a computer translation of the original content. In this article ill try to show how cool and useful gdb is. Int is an assembly language instruction for x86 processors that generates a software interrupt. The kernel debugger kgdb, hypervisors like qemu or jtagbased hardware interfaces allow to debug the linux kernel and its modules during runtime using gdb. The triggered points to the callback routine to be invoked from the exception context, while info contains architecturespeci. Problem is that gdb is not breaking at breakpoints set before. It takes the interrupt number formatted as a byte value. Most flavours of linux come with the gnu debugger, or gdb to the shell. To further support its function as a debug breakpoint, the interrupt generated with the cc opcode also differs from the regular software interrupts as follows.

Since the question is linux specific, lets dive into kernel sources. The kernel provides a collection of helper scripts that can simplify typical kernel debugging steps. Intel wanted int 3 to be for break points so they gave it a single byte. On linux, fork is a wrapper around clone, so its still not particularly accurate. Generated on 2019mar29 from project linux revision v5. Stack overflow for teams is a private, secure spot for you and your coworkers to find and share information. Does executing an int 3 interrupt stop the entire process on linux or.

For programs that have anti debugging mechanisms like scanning for unknown 0xcc. If so, i was wondering why debuggers dont support generating different exceptions for software breakpoints. Gdb comes with a powerful scripting interface for python. Hardware breakpoint or watchpoint usage in linux kernel. If a program is being traced man ptrace then an int3 will cause the. In the case of linux, it causes a sigtrap to be thrown, this signals the debugger that the child process has reached a point that we are interested in. Well int 3 is opcode that its especially meant for the purpose to call debugger.

Hardware breakpoint structure the generic breakpoint structure in the linux kernel oftip git tree presently looks as seen in figure 3. Is it possible to generate a software breakpoint other than int3 to be catched by the debugger, like a division by zero for example. The int 3 instruction generates a special one byte opcode cc that is intended for calling the debug exception handler. The interrupt handler is tiny, and neither the interrupt nor its handler stop any threads. How do i do the equivalent of an x86 software interrupt. This one byte form is valuable because it can be used to replace the first byte of any instruction with a breakpoint, including other one byte instructions, without overwriting other code.

Gdb lets you see the internal structure of a program, print out variable values, set breakpoints and single step through source code. To implement breakpoints on the x86 architecture, software interrupts also. A breakpoint is basically a dedicated system interrupt 0xcc or known mnemonically as int 3 that causes the operating system to act in a certain way. Once your process executes the int 3 instruction, the os stops it 3.