Scalable Remote Debugger Protocol
This page is currently serving as a reference to kick-start development of the universal debugger protocol which will be used by the Universal Debugger Project and hopefully many, many other debuggers and debugger interfaces in the years to come.
References
These references are listed in order of relevance; most relevant first.
- RFC-909: Loader Debugger Protocol
- GDB Remote Serial Protocol
- RFC-643: Network Debugging Protocol
- IEN-158: XNET Debugging Protocol
- DBGp: A common debugger protocol for languages and debugger UI communication
The relevancy I've determined for this list is due to interest in these specs, as well as potential generic uses and protocol extension.
RFC-909 is so far the closest thing I have found which resembles the general idea I have with a "Universal Debugger Protocol". It's composed as a simple binary packet, it's extensible, and it's designed to be stacked on top of existing transport protocols such as TCP/IP. I doubt this exact spec will fit all of our needs, but it is certainly a good start.
GDB provides a fairly popular protocol. This one is designed for serial communications, so it will work well with small embedded devices. But it could be complicated to extend while retaining its GDB friendliness.
RFC-643 and IEN-158 are interesting only because it shows that some experimentation on the ideas of remote debugging have been employed in the past. Unfortunately, these specs were designed for a specific architecture, and are of little practical use for our purposes.
DBGp shows what a modern remote debugging protocol can look like; including modern XML syntax. The downside to this is that low-level debuggers in small embedded devices are unlikely to parse XML at all.
