How do I install GDB on MacOS 10.13.3 (High Sierra)

Question

There are tons and tons of post and blogs discussing this topic, but nothing seems to work...

From across the internet, here is the common consensus regarding the procedure required to install and run gdb.

Install gdb
```
brew install gdb
```
Homebrew "successfully" installs gdb v8.1
Codesign gdb

Codesign gdb by following the codesigning procedure (as detailed in a separate SO post).

Update ~/.gdbinit

echo "set startup-with-shell off" >> ~/.gdbinit

After completing all the steps, when I attempt to debug a simple "hello world" program, I get the following startup error resulting from SIGTRAP being throw.

(gdb) start
Temporary breakpoint 1 at 0x100000e66: file test.cpp, line 5.
Starting program: /Users/zfields/Documents/Development/test/a.out
[New Thread 0x1703 of process 67971]
[New Thread 0x1903 of process 67971]
During startup program terminated with signal SIGTRAP, Trace/breakpoint trap.

What am I missing?

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 11 '18 at 17:04

14

After hours and hours of searching, I finally found an obscure gist identifying the issue and detailing the solution.

TL;DR The GNU Debugger requires a patch before it can work with MacOS. gdb v8.0.1 is the last known good version of GDB for MacOS.

Uninstall the latest version of gdb (i.e. v8.1)
```
brew uninstall --force gdb
```

Force Homebrew to install a version of gdb with the patch for MacOS.

brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/c3128a5c335bd2fa75ffba9d721e9910134e4644/Formula/gdb.rb

Use the existing certificate to codesign the new install of gdb
```
codesign -f -s  "<GNU GDB Certificate>" $(which gdb)
```

Now, gdb works as expected!

Special thanks to https://github.com/marcoparente and https://github.com/lokoum for their gist comments!

answered Mar 11 '18 at 17:04

Zak

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1

This solution was not working for me until I exported the certificate and both keys, private and public, from the Login keychain to the System Keychain. Now It worked. Thanks a lot. – aaguirre Mar 13 '18 at 23:43
2

Why Apple is making this so hard. I've made the whole thing work. A system upgrade makes me search everywhere again. – lkahtz Oct 03 '18 at 11:13
Note: this doesn't work in latest OSX (Mojave); downgrading gdb doesn't fix https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52529838/gdb-8-2-cant-recognized-executable-file-on-macos-mojave-10-14 – timotheecour Dec 02 '18 at 23:22
2

I will soon ditch this MacBook and go to pure Linux ... so user unfriendly. – Xofo Dec 11 '18 at 02:24

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 18 '19 at 17:13

0

I got gdb working on Mojave yesterday by:

a) getting the latest gdb source archive (at time of writing, ftp://sourceware.org/pub/gdb/snapshots/current/gdb-weekly-8.2.50.20190212.tar.xz

b) build gdb. I got errors for variable shadowing in darwin-nat.c so I edited the file and rebuilt.

c) follow steps in https://forward-in-code.blogspot.com/2018/11/mojave-vs-gdb.html

Voila!

(source: GDB on Mac/Mojave: During startup program terminated with signal ?, Unknown signal)

answered Feb 18 '19 at 17:13

Joubert Nel

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Can you expand on step `b)`? – Zak Feb 19 '19 at 00:51
Sure. Here's a diff (you'll notice the removal of the redeclaration): https://gist.github.com/joubertnel/267ca0fff4eaad494cc19ec3ba7953ed – Joubert Nel Feb 19 '19 at 14:41
Add that link to your answer. :D – Zak Feb 20 '19 at 21:21

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 31 '19 at 09:13

0

Maybe a bit of unrelated:

Mac OS Sierra 10.13.6 gdb 8.0.1

had the same error as topic-starter.

https://gist.github.com/gravitylow/fb595186ce6068537a6e9da6d8b5b96d

I discovered that I already had gdbcert1 in my System. Followed everything from 7. Works!

answered May 31 '19 at 09:13

Sergej Fomin

1,822
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How do I install GDB on MacOS 10.13.3 (High Sierra)

3 Answers3

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