JLink GDBServer async mode

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  • JLink GDBServer async mode

    Hello,

    we are using several JLink PRO, JFlasher and JTrace in our company and I have a question:

    Is there a way to use the JLink GDBServer in async mode OR a way to non-intrusively read from memory while a debug target is running?

    I would like to realize a live watch feature in eclipse IDE, but I see no way to request memories or evaluate expressions without suspending the target. As far as I know the feature of non-intrusively accessing the target is called ARM CoreSight. Does the JLink-Debugger support this (over GDBServer) by any means?

    Using eclipse + gcc has many advantages for us, e.g.:
    - gcc runs on our linux buildserver -> 20 times faster compilation
    - plugin-Integration into eclipse for Software design and Testing
    - editor with content-assist

    Missing is only a live-watch feature, which would be very handy.

    Possible solutions would be:
    1) GDBServer supports asynchronous mode and reading memory without suspending target -> I implement a small plugin for eclipse which uses that to read the desired memory locations. Is that possible?

    2) If I can user Segger SDK to read memory from my debugger while the debugger is used by GDBServer without suspending the target, I could implement a small tool which allows us to live watch memory locations. (GDBServer is running on windows, only compiling is done on linux).

    Thank you very much for your help! Michael

    PS: further information on GDB Background-Execution and non-stop mode:
    sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/…html#Background-Execution
    sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/…d-non_002dstop-modes.html

  • Hi,

    Non-stop mode support for GDBServer is on our ToDo list, but I can not give you an exact schedule for implementation yet,
    due to a lot of other projects we have currently in the pipe.
    It is planned for some time this year.


    Best regards
    Alex
    Please read the forum rules before posting.

    Keep in mind, this is *not* a support forum.
    Our engineers will try to answer your questions between their projects if possible but this can be delayed by longer periods of time.
    Should you be entitled to support you can contact us via our support system: segger.com/ticket/
    Or you can contact us via e-mail.

  • Hi Michael,

    I think that is the idea behind the ansyc mode the GDB protocol defines.
    From the J-Link side, reading/writing memory while the target is running is already supported and even from the GDBServer side it is not a problem.
    The main issue is to support async mode, so GDB will allow the IDE to send commands even if the target is running which is not possible in non-async / non-continuous mode.


    Best regards
    Alex
    Please read the forum rules before posting.

    Keep in mind, this is *not* a support forum.
    Our engineers will try to answer your questions between their projects if possible but this can be delayed by longer periods of time.
    Should you be entitled to support you can contact us via our support system: segger.com/ticket/
    Or you can contact us via e-mail.

  • Hi Alex,

    are there any news? We really need this feature, because we want to use Eclipse and Build a live watch feature for it. The other toolchains like IAR workbench have many other disadvantages in our situation.

    Is the Source Code of the GDBserver open such that I could see how difficult it is to add the support for async mode?

    Thank you very much, Michael

  • Hi Michael,

    are there any news?

    As I previously wrote...:
    It is planned for some time later this year. No specific schedule yet.

    Is the Source Code of the GDBserver open such that I could see how difficult it is to add the support for async mode?

    No, the source code of J-Link GDBServer is not open.


    Best regards
    Alex
    Please read the forum rules before posting.

    Keep in mind, this is *not* a support forum.
    Our engineers will try to answer your questions between their projects if possible but this can be delayed by longer periods of time.
    Should you be entitled to support you can contact us via our support system: segger.com/ticket/
    Or you can contact us via e-mail.

  • Segger J-Link GDB Server Asynchronous Mode

    I'm facing the same problem as in JLink GDBServer async mode
    that the J-Link GDB Server currently does not support asynchronous mode.
    I understand that you get a lot of feature requests, but actually this one would be a really, really great and cool one.

    I'm mainly using Freescale Kinetis devices, but all devices you support would benefit from that, as that way it should be possible to read/write memory while the target is running.
    So if this is not already planned, would it be possible to increase the priority of that feature ;-).

    Thanks,
    Erich