HOWTO
=====
-To run the gdb server, do (you do not need sudo if you have
-set up permissions correctly):
-$ make -C build && sudo ./build/st-util 1234 /dev/sg1
+First, you have to know there are several boards supported by the software.
+Those boards use a chip to translate from USB to JTAG commands. The chip is
+called stlink and there are 2 versions:
+. STLINKv1, present on STM32VL discovery kits,
+. STLINKv2, present on STM32L discovery and later kits.
+
+2 different transport layers are used:
+. STLINKv1 uses SCSI passthru commands over USB,
+. STLINKv2 uses raw USB commands.
+
+It means that if you are using a STM32VL board, you have to install and load
+SCSI related software. First, load the sg kernel module:
+# modprobe sg
+
+Then, you need to install the package libsgutils2-dev. On Ubuntu:
+# sudo apt-get install libsgutils2-dev
+
+LIBUSB is required for both cases.
+
+To run the gdb server, do (you do not need sudo if you have set up
+permissions correctly):
+$ make -C build && sudo ./build/st-util [/dev/sgX]
+
+Currently, the GDB server listening port is hardcoded to 4242:
Then, in gdb:
-(gdb) target remote :1234
+(gdb) target remote :4242
Have fun!
+Resetting the chip from GDB
+===========================
+
+You may reset the chip using GDB if you want. You'll need to use `target
+extended-remote' command like in this session:
+(gdb) target extended-remote localhost:4242
+Remote debugging using localhost:4242
+0x080007a8 in _startup ()
+(gdb) kill
+Kill the program being debugged? (y or n) y
+(gdb) run
+Starting program: /home/whitequark/ST/apps/bally/firmware.elf
+
+Remember that you can shorten the commands. `tar ext :4242' is good enough
+for GDB.
+
+Setting up udev rules
+=====================
+
+For convenience, you may install udev rules file, 10-stlink.rules, located
+in the root of repository. You will need to copy it to /etc/udev/rules.d,
+and then either reboot or execute
+$ udevadm control --reload-rules
+
+Udev will now create a /dev/stlink file, which will point at appropriate
+/dev/sgX device. Good to not accidentally start debugging your flash drive.
+
Running programs from SRAM
==========================
-You can run your firmware directly from SRAM if you want to.
-Just link it at 0x20000000 and do
+You can run your firmware directly from SRAM if you want to. Just link
+it at 0x20000000 and do
(gdb) load firmware.elf
It will be loaded, and pc will be adjusted to point to start of the
(gdb) load firmware.elf
then it would be written to the memory.
-Caveats
-=======
+FAQ
+===
+
+Q: My breakpoints do not work at all or only work once.
-GDB sends requests for a multi-sectioned ELF files (most ones;
-having both .text and .rodata is enough) in a quite strange way which
-absolutely does not conform to flash page boundaries. Which is even more
-weird when you think about FlashErase requests which it sends correctly.
-And I couldn't think of a way which will resolve this correctly now.
+A: Optimizations can cause severe instruction reordering. For example,
+if you are doing something like `REG = 0x100;' in a loop, the code may
+be split into two parts: loading 0x100 into some intermediate register
+and moving that value to REG. When you set up a breakpoint, GDB will
+hook to the first instruction, which may be called only once if there are
+enough unused registers. In my experience, -O3 causes that frequently.
-Hardware breakpoints are not supported yet. You can still run your code from
-RAM, and then GDB will insert `bkpt' opcodes automagically.
+Q: At some point I use GDB command `next', and it hangs.
-Sometimes when you will try to use GDB `next' command to skip a loop,
+A: Sometimes when you will try to use GDB `next' command to skip a loop,
it will use a rather inefficient single-stepping way of doing that.
Set up a breakpoint manually in that case and do `continue'.
projects / fw / stlink / blobdiff