How to use Eclipse and GDB to debug the .NET Micro Framework

In my last post we were using GCC to build the .NET Micro Framework firmware for the i.MXS reference board. Now we go one step further and will debug the firmware using GDB.

What do we need?

• GDB and GCC - it's included in the free ARM Tools from Raisonance
• OpenOCD and a JTAG Debugger (e.g. ARM-USB-OCD)
• Eclipse as an IDE (with CDT plugin)
• Zylin-embedded CDT (the update site for Eclipse is: http://opensource.zylin.com/zylincdt)

First an overview of our setup:



The installation should be straight forward. Here are the configuration steps...

• Open a command window, invoke setenv_gcc.cmd and run Eclipse from this initialized build environment.
  
  
• Create a new C++ Project in Eclipse:
  
  File->New->C++ Project
  
  
  
  (I set the workspace to "C:\" and named the project like the installation directory of the porting kit "MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0".)
  
  
• Configure Build:
  
  Project->Properties->C/C++ Build
  Add a new configuration e.g. "iMXS Debug RAM"
  Build command: msbuild.exe
  Build directory: ${workspace_loc:/MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0/Solutions/iMXS}
  
  
  
  Build (Incremental build): dotNetMF.proj /t:build /p:flavor=debug;memory=ram;platform=iMXS
  (This builds a debug version of the iMXS firmware that executes from RAM. To build a release version that executes from FLASH, don't add any additional arguments after dotNetMF.proj)
  
  
  

• We add OpenOCD as an external tool:
  
  Run->External Tools->External Tools Configuration...
  Name: OpenOCD
  Location: C:\Program Files\openocd-r247\bin\openocd-ftd2xx.exe
  Working Directory: C:\Program Files\openocd-r247\bin\
  Arguments: -f imxs.cfg
  (For a sample imxs.cfg file look here.)
  
  
  
  
• Finally we configure gdb:
  
  Run->Debug Configurations...
  Add "Zylin Embedded debug (native)" configuration
  Name: iMXS tinyclr
  C/C++ Application: C:\MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0\BuildOutput\ARM\GCC4.2\RAM\debug\iMXS\bin\tinyclr.axf
  
  
  
  GDB Debugger: C:\Programs\Raisonance\Ride\arm-gcc\bin\arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe
  
  
  
  Initialize commands:
  
  target remote 127.0.0.1:3333
  monitor reset
  monitor sleep 500
  monitor poll
  monitor soft_reset_halt
  monitor arm7_9 sw_bkpts enable
  break PreStackEntry
  load
  continue
  
  (This connects to the gdb server, enables software breakpoints, sets a breakpoint at the function PreStackEntry, loads the firmware into RAM and starts... )
  
  
  
  
• Now we can settle back and only press some buttons...
  
  First we build a debug version that executes from RAM
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ...run our JTAG server OpenOCD
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ...and hit the debug button!
  Now it takes some seconds to transfer our debug firmware into the RAM of the i.MXS board.
  
  
  
  The firmware starts and immediately stops at PreStackEntry. Now we can discover the code line by line... :)
  
  
  

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.NET Micro Framework Porting Kit V3.0 with GCC Support?

Just a joke or what? The release notes of the recently released .NET Micro Framework Porting Kit V3.0 highlight the support for building the .NET MF firmware with GCC tools. It's hard to believe - so let's try it!
After installation of the porting kit I was looking for some information about the toolchain to use. The only hint I could find in the documentation is that GCC4.2 or later is supported for the ARM architecture. Frivolous as I am, I installed the first GNU ARM toolchain for Windows I found on the web. A few seconds later the build script ran and a lot of red output was flashing in the build window. Usually I like the red color but not in this case! ERRORS - wherever you look! Sure.. GCC support. Fortunately the cause was obvious. The toolchain I'd installed doesn't include a none EABI compiler, that was called by the build script. Due to the lack of information, I had to try several toolchains until I found the free ARM Tools from Raisonance, which finally worked :)

These are the three easy steps to build your home-made firmware:

1. Start a command window
2. Call setenv_gcc.cmd in the installation directory of the porting kit with the path of your toolchain to set up your build environment
   setenv_gcc.cmd C:\PROGRA~1\RAISON~1\Ride\arm-gcc
3. Invoke MSBuild.exe with the command below in the directory of your platform solution
   msbuild dotNetMF.proj
   

E Voilá. We have built a release version of the .NET Micro Framework V3.0 firmware ready for flashing. How to do this? Take a look at this previous post :)

The following is just a reminder of the used OpenOCD commands for me, if I want to flash my i.MXS board again ;)

flash probe 0
flash erase 0 0 63
flash write_binary 0 C:\MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0\BuildOutput\ARM\GCC4.2\FLASH\release\iMXS\bin\TinyBooterDecompressor.bin 0x0
flash write_binary 0 C:\MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0\BuildOutput\ARM\GCC4.2\FLASH\release\iMXS\bin\tinyclr.bin\ER_CONFIG 0x40000
flash write_binary 0 C:\MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0\BuildOutput\ARM\GCC4.2\FLASH\release\iMXS\bin\tinyclr.bin\ER_FLASH 0x60000
flash write_binary 0 C:\MicroFrameworkPK_v3_0\BuildOutput\ARM\GCC4.2\FLASH\release\iMXS\bin\tinyclr.bin\ER_DAT 0x120000

The result looks like this:




Even the output of the deployment tool tells us V3.0. Now we could use Visual Studio to develop and deploy our real application with all the features of the new SDK.



Next time we'll visit the wonderful world of the gdb console and try to debug the whole thing. No, just kidding - we'll use a debugger with a graphical interface of course :)
Stay tuned!

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