Launch.json set up for VSCode debugging on qemu within docker container

Question

New to docker/qemu/gdb.

I am able to "make debug" and "make gdb" and debug from CLI. However, I got an error (no executable specified) when I try to use VSCode debugger to attach to a running qemu target.

I am running a x86/64 machine and running within an ubuntu docker dev container.

Need help getting vscode to recognize that I am attaching to qemu target rather than running the elf on local machine, which seems to be the problem.

File build/arm-start.elf:

root@6d0880bb1ed3:/work/RapidPatch/VulDevices/qemu-stm32-p103/build# file ./arm-start.elf 
./arm-start.elf: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, with debug_info, not stripped

Launch.json:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "useExtendedRemote": true,
            "name": "Attach to QEMU (GDB Remote)",
            "type": "cppdbg",
            "request": "attach",
            "MIMode": "gdb",
            "miDebuggerServerAddress": "localhost:1234",
            "miDebuggerPath": "${workspaceFolder}/gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2020-q2-update/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/RapidPatch/VulDevices/qemu-stm32-p103/build/arm-start.elf"
        }
    ]
}

Manas · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-17 05:23:16Z

You don't have cwd (Current working directory) and exact program location, please refer to the modification below:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "useExtendedRemote": true,
            "name": "Attach to QEMU (GDB Remote)",
            "type": "cppdbg",
            "request": "attach",
            "MIMode": "gdb",
            "miDebuggerServerAddress": "localhost:1234",
            "miDebuggerPath": "${workspaceFolder}/gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2020-q2-update/bin/arm-none-eabi-gdb",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/RapidPatch/VulDevices/qemu-stm32-p103/build/arm-start.elf",
            "cwd":"/home/<path to your current working directory>",  // Host machine not container
            "program": "/home/<path to your current working directory>/a.out", // Host machine not container, the exe/out file path

        }
    ]
}

Note: I am taking /home just as a reference to depict, you need to mention the exact path.

Further please check the logs of docker container, you need to install both gdb and gdb server

sudo apt-get install gdbserver && sudo apt-get install gdb

Also make sure you are exposing the same port in dockerfile and the container has same Ubuntu version running, for me when I was having different version of Ubuntu in my PC and docker container, there was error in connecting.

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