Linux VM Kernel Debugging

These are some handy steps for doing Linux live kernel debugging on the OpenXT platform. OpenXT makes this readily doable by using serial over IP within QEMU to connect the remote debugger GDB to the kernel debugger KGDB. Of course everyone has their favorite distro but for brevity's sake we will stick to just one – Debian. Most of the steps should be the same with other flavors aside from the package management bits and specifics of rebuilding the kernel sources.

Beforehand

Here are some things to setup up first and to keep in mind while going through this:

• This is based on using Debian Wheezy. That means apt package manager and .deb package files.
• Throughout this guide: ** target is the VM that is being kernel debugged ** host is the debugger, the VM where GDB is remotely connecting to the target.