1021 results about "Debugger" patented technology

A number of systems and methods, alone, or in combination, achieve various levels of protection against unauthorized modification and distribution of digital content. This encompasses at least unauthorized study, modification, monitoring, reconstruction, and any other means for subversion from the originally intended purpose and license model of the digital content. The invention combines a number of techniques that in whole, or in part, serve to protect such content from unauthorized modification, reconstructive engineering, or monitoring by third parties. This is accomplished by means of methods which protect against subversion by specific tools operating on specific platforms as well as general tools operating on general platforms. Specific time domain attacks are identified, code modification can be identified and reversed, and virtual and emulated systems are identified. In addition, identification of in-circuit emulator tools (both software and hardware), debuggers, and security threats to running programs can be achieved.

In a multi-core processor, a high-speed interrupt-signal interconnect allows more than one of the processors to be interrupted at substantially the same time. For example, a global signal interconnect is coupled to each of the multiple processors, each processor being configured to selectively provide an interrupt signal, or pulse thereon. Preferably, each of the processor cores is capable of pulsing the global signal interconnect during every clock cycle to minimize delay between a triggering event and its respective interrupt signal. Each of the multiple processors also senses, or samples the global signal interconnect, preferably during the same cycle within which the pulse was provided, to determine the existence of an interrupt signal. Upon sensing an interrupt signal, each of the multiple processors responds to it substantially simultaneously. For example, an interrupt signal sampled by each of the multiple processors causes each processor to invoke a debug handler routine.

The conventional application protection technique complicates an application to make it difficult to analyze the application. However, with such a complication method, the complicate program can be analyzed sooner or later by taking a lot of time no matter how the degree of the complication is high. Also, it is impossible to protect the application from unauthorized copying. The meta-information managing unit that is to be executed in the secure execution unit stores the meta-information of the application in an area that can not be accessed by a debugger. When the meta-information is required by the normal execution unit to execute the application, a result of predetermined calculation using the meta-information is notified to the normal execution unit. In this way, the meta-information of the application can be kept secret.

A method and apparatus for debugging of OS kernel and applications software that does not require use of a hardware probe; can debug both user-mode programs and a significant body of the OS kernel code; allows the OS to continue servicing exceptions while debugging; leverages OS built-in device drivers for communicating devices to communicate with the host debugger; and can debug a production version of the OS kernel. When debugging is required, the running OS kernel dynamically loads a software-based debug agent on demand whereby such debug agent dynamically modifies the running production OS kernel code and data to intercept debugging traps and provide run-control. To provide debugging of loadable module, the debug agent implement techniques to intercept the OS module loading system call; set breakpoints in the loaded module initialization function; calculate the start address of the debugged module in memory; and asynchronously put the system under debug. By structuring command loop to execute in non-exception mode, and devising a process to transfer execution from the debug agent exception handler to the debug agent command loop and back, the debug agent can communicate with the host debugger using interrupt-driven input/output devices as well as allowing the system to service interrupts while under debug.

Disclosed is a system for debugging a computer program. A user indicates a specified breakpoint type, such as a program statement, variable reference, command, etc. The program, including program statements, is then compiled. During compilation, the compiler locates statements in the program corresponding to the breakpoint types and generates a function call into the program at instances in the program of statements corresponding to the user specified breakpoint types. During a debugging phase, a debugger may execute an executable version of the program, including the function calls. Upon processing the function calls, the debugger may stop execution of the program and pass control to the user to perform debugging operations.

Methods and systems for safe execution of guest code in virtual machine context are presented. A method for running a virtual machine in a computing system includes (a) launching a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that uses a software debugger; (b) launching a virtual machine (VM) that can natively run safe instructions; (c) determining, at runtime, if the instruction is safe or potentially unsafe; (d) executing safe instructions in a native mode; and (e) activating control logic to process potentially unsafe instructions in the software debugger. The software debugger can bypass at least one of the potentially unsafe instructions. The potentially unsafe instructions include instructions that cannot be safely executed in the context of the VM, and instructions that can cause unpredictable results in the context of the VM.

Programming a plurality of states having respective threads is achieved by an event engine and a computer controlled GUI causing the event engine to monitor a signal and execute an action based thereon. The GUI programs an event and several states and causes the event engine to traverse between the states upon reaching the event. The GUI further programs a logic chain which unifies the threads. A method unifies several threads by selecting and executing a logic operation. The method further configures several states and causes traversing between them. The GUI may be deployed co-functionally with debuggers, logic analyzers, scopes, utilities, and software development tools. The results of the GUI are automatically transformed into program code which programs the event engine to operate during debug of a device under test by monitoring for events and taking action based thereon.

Techniques are disclosed for debugging heterogeneous applications in a distributed environment. In one embodiment, an architecture for debugging heterogeneous applications in a distributed environment is configured to enable both location transparency and dynamic exposure of service state. Regardless of where the physical application state resides, the architecture describes or otherwise provides a mechanism that allows seamless debugging and troubleshooting of distributed applications. The location of the state is transparent to the debugger and the application being debugged. In addition, the architecture enables an individual service to expose its state dynamically at run-time. It is possible for the service to expose its state in a self-describing fashion, allowing service state to be exposed in the architecture regardless of the service environment. The architecture allows for all the capabilities of debuggers running in non-distributed, homogeneous environments in a distributed heterogeneous environment.

A method for execution control of a user application program utilizing control program and management software is provided. This execution control is provided without a need to modify or recompile the user application program. The invention provides ability to save states during the execution of an application program and provides a means to jump between them. The invention also provides a means for multiple remote users to interact with the user program and also provide means to control the user application via script and share common portions of execution among multiple execution instances of the same user application program. The invention enables attaching a debugger to a state, maintaining debug context for all the saved states, and means to jump to a state saved at an earlier point in execution to help debug user application programs.

An integrated design environment (IDE) is disclosed for forming virtual embedded systems. The IDE includes a design language for forming finite state machine models of hardware components that are coupled to simulators of processor cores, preferably instruction set accurate simulators. A software debugger interface permits a software application to be loaded and executed on the virtual embedded system. A virtual test bench may be coupled to the simulation to serve as a human-machine interface. In one embodiment, the IDE is provided as a web-based service for the evaluation, development and procurement phases of an embedded system project. IP components, such as processor cores, may be evaluated using a virtual embedded system. In one embodiment, a virtual embedded system is used as an executable specification for the procurement of a good or service related to an embedded system.

An automated processor design tool uses a description of customized processor instruction set extensions in a standardized language to develop a configurable definition of a target instruction set, a Hardware Description Language description of circuitry necessary to implement the instruction set, and development tools such as a compiler, assembler, debugger and simulator which can be used to develop applications for the processor and to verify it. The standardized language is capable of handling instruction set extensions which modify processor state or use configurable processors. By providing a constrained domain of extensions and optimizations, the process can be automated to a high degree, thereby facilitating fast and reliable development.

Systems, methods, apparatus and software can be implemented to provide a debugger agent, either separate form or integrated into the script-based testing platform, to coordinate the selection, activation, and or/operation of debuggers suitable for a particular unit and program under test. Such a debugger agent can provide run time monitoring and debugging activities where previously not possible. The debugger agent is generally independent agent, in that it can work with a variety of types of test scripts, test script handlers, programming languages, and debuggers without customization. Moreover, implementation generally needs no code instrumentation.

An apparatus, method and computer program product are provided for performing a sequence of verification tests to perform hardware and software co-verification on a system under verification. The apparatus comprises a plurality of signal interface controllers operable to be coupled to the system under verification, with each signal interface controller being operable to perform one or more test actions transferring at least one of one or more stimulus signals and one or more response signals between a corresponding portion of the system under verification and the signal interface controller during performance of the sequence of verification tests. A debugger is also provided which is operable to control operation of a processing unit associated with the system under verification, the processing unit being operable to execute software routines. A debugger signal interface controller is arranged to interface with the debugger and to perform one or more test actions transferring at least one of one or more stimulus signals and one or more response signals between the debugger and the debugger signal interface controller during performance of the sequence of verification tests. A test manager coupled to the plurality of signal interface controllers and the debugger signal interface controller is operable to transfer test controlling messages to these interface controllers identifying the test actions to be performed. By this approach, the test manager is operable to control the operation of the processing unit via the debugger signal interface controller and the debugger in order to co-ordinate the execution of the software routines with a sequence of verification tests. This has been found to be a particularly efficient technique for performing hardware and software co-verification.

Methods, apparatus, and computer program products are disclosed for debugging a computer program in a distributed debugger that include defining a conditional breakpoint conditioned upon one or more attributes of a remote execution environment, debugging the computer program in a debug session in the remote execution environment, and retrieving debug information at the breakpoint conditioned upon one or more attributes of the remote execution environment.

An integrated dynamic-visual parallel debugging apparatus comprising: replay drive means for receiving a program and creating program symbol table information and an execution log file through reference execution; a parallel debugger core for receiving the program symbol table information and the execution log file from the replay drive means and managing views and events; and graphical user interface means for interfacing the parallel debugger core and a user.

A system for debugging targets using various techniques, some of which are particularly useful in a multithread environment. These techniques include implementing breakpoints using out-of-line instruction emulation so that an instruction replaced with a breakpoint instruction does not need to be returned to its original location for single-step execution, executing a debugger nub for each target as part of the target task but using a nub task thread for the nub execution that is separate from the target task threads, providing immunity from breakpoints for specified threads such as the nub thread via specialized breakpoint handlers used by those threads, and virtualizing the debugger nub such that a shared root nub provides a uniform interface between the debugger and the target while specialized nubs provide differing functionality based on the type of target being debugged.