Writing debuggers

Question

I am very dissatisfied at how little info is available on writing Windows debuggers.

Most of the code I have was made by a long process of trial and error, the documentation obviously "thinks" most of the topics are too trivial while explaining in much detail obvious and useless things.

I found 2 articles or so on it but not much stuff I didn't already know came out of it.

Is there any documentation at all, and I mean complete documentation, or some GOOD article (not how to change a byte to 0xCC in vb.NET but real world stuff) about debuggers? Advanced debuggers with memory breakpoints.

For now I didn't find a way for example how to find out how many bytes were being written in a GUARD_PAGE_VIOLATION. I just make a buffer before and after the code executes and compare.

Also where to find info what lies in debug_event.u.Exception.ExceptionRecord.ExceptionInformation? (among other things that lay in debug_event)

Do I really have to reverse the reversing environment myself?

I am pretty sure you will not find anything. Interaction between debugger and kernel is obscure and unclear even to MS itself. — Kirill Kobelev
– Kirill Kobelev, Commented Nov 6, 2012 at 15:53
DEBUG_EVENT is officially described in MSDN here: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/… .Some nice articles are here: codeproject.com/Articles/132742/Writing-Windows-Debugger-Part-2 and here: devonstrawntech.tumblr.com/post/15878429193/… — Simon Mourier
– Simon Mourier, Commented Jan 29, 2013 at 13:46
@SimonMourier post it as an answer, that second link has tons of info, thanks :) — n00b
– n00b, Commented Jan 29, 2013 at 14:13

Simon Mourier · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-29 14:22:22Z

9

+50

This is indeed some information available.

DEBUG_EVENT (and the rest of the Debug API) is officially described in MSDN here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms679308(v=vs.85).aspx

There is a nice CodeProject article: Writing a basic Windows debugger and its sequel: Writing Windows Debugger - Part 2

And finally, a complete list of references from Devon Strawn: How to write a (Windows) debugger - References

answered Jan 29, 2013 at 14:22

Simon Mourier

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Hasturkun · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-15 19:35:02Z

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You can find "old" but good samples in the Windows SDK: Look at: .\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Samples\winbase\debug\

The debbughandler shows how to handle exceptions.

edited Dec 15, 2012 at 19:35

Hasturkun

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answered Dec 15, 2012 at 19:28

Alon

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1 Comment

JSuar Over a year ago

Since you can't add a comment, try to include some sources and/or other examples.

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