KGDB

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KGDB
Design by	Dave Grothe
Developed by	LinSysSoft Technologies
OS	Linux
Genre	Debugger
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://kgdb.linsyssoft.com/

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KGDB is a debugger for the Linux kernel. It requires two machines that are connected via a serial connection. The serial connection may either be an RS-232 interface using a null modem cable, or via the UDP/IP networking protocol (KGDB over Ethernet, KGDBoE).

KGDB is currently implemented as a patch to Linux kernel, but it has been included in the official kernel in 2.6.26-rc1. The target machine (the one being debugged) runs the patched kernel and the other (host) machine runs gdb. The GDB remote protocol is used between the two machines.

KGDB is available for the following architectures: x86, x86-64, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, and S390.

A program named kgdb is also used by FreeBSD. It is a gdb based utility for debugging kernel core files.

It is free software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Ingo Molnar created a slimmed-down and cleaned up version of KGDB which he calls "kgdb light" (without ethernet support and many other hacks), which is the one merged into the 2.6.26 kernel.^[1]