CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidc++android-studioandroid-ndknative-executable
Brett Thomas
Brett Thomas

Reputation: 161

how can I debug an android native executable and library not directly integrated into the APK application

I have an android application that consists of a Java based APK, native executable, and native library. The apk talks to the native (root NDK c/c++) executable and library over a socket.

I'm not sure if it matters but the executable and library are compiled via cmake, and copied to be executable and then run as root. I need to get some type of debugging going with breakpoints and such, regardless of if it's directly in android studio or via command line.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 3261

Answers (1)

Oleg Bogdanov
Oleg Bogdanov

Reputation: 1732

You would need to run gdbserver on the device and let it attach to your executable

gdbserver comes prebuilt with ndk, usually under <ndk>/prebuilt/android-arm/gdbserver/

  1. Copy gdbserver binary to your device, for instance to /data/local/tmp and give it executable permissions with chmod

  2. If your executable is already running, find its PID with ps command and attach gdb to it:

    gdbserver :5039 --attach <PID>

Note that 5039 is port number that is usually used for debugging with gdb, you can use your own if you like

  1. set up a port forwarding from device to pc with

    adb forward tcp:5039 tcp:5039

  2. Run gdb locally, note that you need arm targeted gdb that comes with ndk too, usually at

    <ndk>toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.9/prebuilt/darwin-x86_64/bin/arm-linux-androideabi-gdb

  3. Attach gdb to your process

    target remote :5039

And from here you need to use gdb commands that match your debugging expectations (set breakpoints, load symbols, step through etc), for examples use cheatsheet or ask in comments

Upvotes: 3

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