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docs/system/gdb.rst: Document how to debug multicore machines

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Document how multicore machines appear to GDB when debugged
via the debug stub. This is particularly non-intuitive for
the "multiple heterogenous clusters" case, but unfortunately
as far as I know there is no way with the remote protocol
for the stub to tell gdb "I have 2 inferiors, please connect
to both", so the user must set it all up manually.

Signed-off-by: Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>
Signed-off-by: Alex Bennée <alex.bennee@linaro.org>
Reviewed-by: Philippe Mathieu-Daudé <f4bug@amsat.org>
Message-Id: <20210325175023.13838-3-peter.maydell@linaro.org>
Message-Id: <20210401102530.12030-10-alex.bennee@linaro.org>
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Peter Maydell 2021-04-01 11:25:28 +01:00 committed by Alex Bennée
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@ -45,6 +45,61 @@ Here are some useful tips in order to use gdb on system code:
3. Use ``set architecture i8086`` to dump 16 bit code. Then use
``x/10i $cs*16+$eip`` to dump the code at the PC position.
Debugging multicore machines
============================
GDB's abstraction for debugging targets with multiple possible
parallel flows of execution is a two layer one: it supports multiple
"inferiors", each of which can have multiple "threads". When the QEMU
machine has more than one CPU, QEMU exposes each CPU cluster as a
separate "inferior", where each CPU within the cluster is a separate
"thread". Most QEMU machine types have identical CPUs, so there is a
single cluster which has all the CPUs in it. A few machine types are
heterogenous and have multiple clusters: for example the ``sifive_u``
machine has a cluster with one E51 core and a second cluster with four
U54 cores. Here the E51 is the only thread in the first inferior, and
the U54 cores are all threads in the second inferior.
When you connect gdb to the gdbstub, it will automatically
connect to the first inferior; you can display the CPUs in this
cluster using the gdb ``info thread`` command, and switch between
them using gdb's usual thread-management commands.
For multi-cluster machines, unfortunately gdb does not by default
handle multiple inferiors, and so you have to explicitly connect
to them. First, you must connect with the ``extended-remote``
protocol, not ``remote``::
(gdb) target extended-remote localhost:1234
Once connected, gdb will have a single inferior, for the
first cluster. You need to create inferiors for the other
clusters and attach to them, like this::
(gdb) add-inferior
Added inferior 2
(gdb) inferior 2
[Switching to inferior 2 [<null>] (<noexec>)]
(gdb) attach 2
Attaching to process 2
warning: No executable has been specified and target does not support
determining executable automatically. Try using the "file" command.
0x00000000 in ?? ()
Once you've done this, ``info threads`` will show CPUs in
all the clusters you have attached to::
(gdb) info threads
Id Target Id Frame
1.1 Thread 1.1 (cortex-m33-arm-cpu cpu [running]) 0x00000000 in ?? ()
* 2.1 Thread 2.2 (cortex-m33-arm-cpu cpu [halted ]) 0x00000000 in ?? ()
You probably also want to set gdb to ``schedule-multiple`` mode,
so that when you tell gdb to ``continue`` it resumes all CPUs,
not just those in the cluster you are currently working on::
(gdb) set schedule-multiple on
Advanced debugging options
==========================