Debug iOS application on device without symbols Debug iOS application on device without symbols ios ios

Debug iOS application on device without symbols


I'm going to answer my own question because I think I've stumbled upon a solution. If anyone has anything more elegant and simple than this, please answer as well. On to the steps:

Starting with a raw monolithic iOS executable (not a bundled .app, but the actual binary mach-o file that is the machine code).

  1. Create a new like-named empty Xcode project. Build and run it on the device.
  2. Locate the output bundle's .app folder.
  3. Copy the above raw iOS executable over the existing one in the .app bundle's folder.
  4. The application will now have an invalid signature and cannot be deployed and run.
  5. Run codesign against the app bundle (you can find out the command-line by running xcodebuild on the above Xcode project).
  6. In the bundle's .app folder, run otool -h -l on the binary image. Locate the LC_UNIXTHREAD load command and find the value associated with the 'pc' register. This is address where the os loader will jump to your application. If this address is odd, then these are Thumb instructions otherwise it will be ARM (I think that's how it works).
  7. Add a symbolic breakpoint (I used GDB instead of LLDB) and enter the address as '*0x00001234' as the symbol.
  8. Select Product|Perform Action|Run Without Building.

Assuming that GDB is able to evaluate the breakpoint expression and set the break point, and you've selected Product|Debug Workflow|Show Disassembly When Debugging, the process should break at the very first instruction to be executed in the application.

You can now single step the instructions and use the GDB console to get/set register values.


Your question does not make sense - main is the entry point into the application. It is the first code that should be encountered, unless possibly you have initialize() overridden for some classes (but even then I think main would get hit before the runtime).

I think you are seeing some kind of odd error on launch and you think you want to set a breakpoint on entry to catch it, but far more likely what would help you is to describe the problem on launch and let one of the 4000 people who have seen and fixed the same crash help you...

However, if you really want to use GDB to break on an application with no symbols (but that you launch from XCode) you can have GDB break on an assembly address as per:

How to break on assembly instruction at a given address in gdb?

To find the address of main (or other methods) you can use tool or atos, some examples in this question:

Matching up offsets in iOS crash dump to disassembled binary

ADDITION:

If for some reason XCode cannot launch your application for debugging, you could also jailbreak and install GDB on the device itself which would give complete control over debugging. If XCode can launch you application I see no reason why being able to break at an arbitrary memory address does not give you the ability you seek...


One solution for applications with webviews is to run them in the iOS Simulator, and connect to that with the remote-debugger in macOS Safari. This is off-topic but maybe the one or other could benefit.

http://hiediutley.com/2011/11/22/debugging-ios-apps-using-safari-web-inspector/

Or use NetCat for iOS... not the most perfect solution, but at least you see what's going on.