GDBStub for the Wii U

This is a plugin which provides a gdbstub for debugging Wii U software, including homebrew.

It's based on the gdbstub that's inside the coreinit.rpl and present on any Wii U. This plugin patches several functions to allow usage of the stub on retail consoles.

With these patches some bugs have been fixed (e.g. basic vCont support and escape packet contents) and support for multiple queries have been added. Memory access is now done completely via the KernelModule which bypasses the MMU, which allow us to write/read anywhere.

For research purposes it's planned to reimplement (the important parts of) the coreinit.rpl gdbstub step by step.

Features

• Hardware breakpoint support (maximum one hw breakpoint is supported at once).
• Support up to 512 software breakpoints at the same time.
• Hardware watchpoints for read/write access of data with 8 byte accuracy (maximum one hw watchpoint is supported at once).
• Stepping to the next instruction (only the for currently active threads)
• Memory/register reading/writing.
• Implemented the optional qXfer:features:read and qXfer:threads:read query.
• Interrupting the execution at any time via CTRL+C
• See the main.h for further configuration options via macros.

Requirements / Limitations:

• Using MochaPayload v0.2 or higher or something else that supports the DK_PChar API. If not using mocha, you probably need to adjust the makeOpenPath replacement.
• Any homebrew you want to debug needs to be built with wut 1.2.0-2 or higher. Official software works too, but you probably won't have any symbols.
• When the gdbstub is loaded, it'll directly start to wait for a connection via TCP. It's recommended to load the plugin when needed via the network instead of placing it permanently on the sd card. For loading plugins at runtime you can use the wiiload plugin.
• The console will not respond to any other input while waiting for a connection. Please connect to the stub or force-shutdown the console (hold the power button of the console for at least 4 seconds)
• The gdbstub will stay loaded and active until the console is shut down. It's possible to change or reload the application.

Recommended:

• Using the USBSerialLogger module to have output via serial while debugging. For this you need a USB serial cable with certain chipset. The USBSerialLogger repo for more information.
• Build the homebrew apps with -O0, make sure to add the -g compiler flag for creating debug builds with DWARF information.

Usage

• Boot your console into a WiiUPluginLoaderBackend compatible environment (e.g. Aroma)
• Start the homebrew app you want to debug.
• Load the gdbstub_plugin via wiiload.
• Now the homebrew app will restart and wait for a connection. (When using the usb serial logging it should print [+-*WAITING FOR DEBUGGER*-+])
• Connect to the gdbstub via TCP at port 3000.
• When you don't load any symbol file, you might have to force the endianness via set endian big

Basic settings for gdb:

set arch powerpc:750
set remotetimeout 30
set tcp connect-timeout 60
set print thread-events on
set disassemble-next-line on
set remote hardware-watchpoint-limit 1
set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit 1
target remote tcp:192.168.178.123:3000

Building

In order to be able to compile this, you need to have devkitPPC installed devkitPPC with the following pacman packages installed.

(sudo) (dkp-)pacman -Syu --needed wiiu-dev

Make sure the following environment variables are set:

DEVKITPRO=/opt/devkitpro
DEVKITPPC=/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC

Also make sure to install wut, WiiUPluginSystem, libkernel and libwupsbackend.

Building using the Dockerfile

It's possible to use a docker image for building. This way you don't need anything installed on your host system.

# Build docker image (only needed once)
docker build . -t gbdstubplugin-builder

# make
docker run -it --rm -v ${PWD}:/project gbdstubplugin-builder make

# make clean
docker run -it --rm -v ${PWD}:/project gbdstubplugin-builder make clean

Format the code via docker

docker run --rm -v ${PWD}:/src wiiuenv/clang-format:13.0.0-2 -r ./src -i