Supports remote debugging of applications on Linux

[Richard_Suignard]

Hello I am running RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.1 (x86_64) and Intel composer_xe_2011_sp1.7.256 and although documentation on the debuggger found here: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/idb-linux/ states it supports remote debugging under Linux, all variants of command line options that I try (mostly found from dated Google search results) fail to even make the debugger attempt a connection to a remote debugging agent.

Please Help!
Does anyone know how to use idb under Linux to debug a remote process on another host? I can't find any recent/working documentation on subject.

Thank you,
RichardS.

[Rob_Mueller-Albrecht]

Dear Richard,

I am afraid support for gdbserver based remote debugging has been deprecated in this distribution since I originally wrote the article you reference. MPI support is still fully available - sorry.

As a workaround can you install the Intel Debugger on the target machine and run it locally?

If not, you may want to evalute the Intel Debugger included in the Intel Embedded Software Development Tool Suite (http://www.intel.com/software/products/atomtools). It contains a debugger called via
$ idb_remote &
and a debug agent called idbserver that would run on the target device and handle tcp/ip based communication.

Sorry for the confusion and slightly outdated information in the article.

Thanks,Rob

[Richard_Suignard]

Well that certainly is disappointing. Why would they have deprecated such a useful feature without a replacement? Also, why isnt the fact it is no longer supported better documented?

I have tried copying over the debugger (and other required files) by hand and running it but it cant find a licence. Our licences are node-locked to our development servers. Our company sells a software package and although it is rare we do have the need to debug processes on our clients production servers. I can understand restricting the compilers to a licensed only environment but without the remote debugging feature anymore it seems like your product lacking a very critical ability which prevents software manufactures from debugging their software on the customer servers that it is deployed on. I think either the feature needs to be re-added or the licence check for idb needs to be relaxed.

I am pretty sure the Atom suite has zero chance of working on our Linux x86_64 environment, but it seems to have the support for the feature we need. Perhaps I am wrong?

We are at a critical dead-end with this product if this issue cannot be resolved.

[Rob_Mueller-Albrecht]

Hi Richard,

I am afraid you are correct in that the Intel Embedded Software Development Tool Suite for Intel Atom Processor currently only supports 32bit mode.

Let me check with our development team whether they can recommend soemgood alternatives.
I will certainly generate a high priority feature request for you otherwise.

Thanks, Rob

[Rob_Mueller-Albrecht]

Hi Richard,

as mentioned before traditional cross-debgu support is not an official IDBfeature any more, essentially because customer demand did historically not seem to exist. That said, there is a way that you can try with recent debugger distributions that may be worth trying. I'll share it in a private communciation.

Thanks, Rob