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Remote Debugging On Linux Arm

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Gregg Miskelly edited this page Jan 30, 2020 · 22 revisions

The extension supports remote debugging netcoreapp 2.1 or newer on linux-arm. The extension has been tested against Raspbian 8 and 9. Please let us know if you run into issues with other distributions.

As of netcoreapp 3.0, linux-arm64 is also supported. When following these instructions for arm64, be sure to replace linux-arm with linux-arm64.

If you run into any problems, please file an issue and note in the text that this is related to linux-arm.

Choose one of the following deployment methods:

  • Framework Dependent Deployment: Compile the application locally. Deploy the binary to linux-arm. Requires the .NET Core Runtime to be installed on linux-arm.

  • Self Contained Deployment: Compile and publish the application locally. Deploy the standalone application to linux-arm.

Prerequisites

Install .NET Core 2.1 (or newer) SDK locally (IDE computer)

See microsoft.com for links to the SDK and instructions.

Install the debugger for linux-arm (target computer)

  • Install the native dependencies of .NET Core. On Raspbian, this should only mean installing Curl and unzip if it they aren't already installed (sudo apt-get install curl).
  • Run the following command on linux-arm (installs to ~/vsdbg):
curl -sSL https://aka.ms/getvsdbgsh | bash /dev/stdin -r linux-arm -v latest -l ~/vsdbg

Framework-Dependent Deployment

Framework-dependent deployments are when the application is deployed without a copy of .NET Core itself, so the application depends on the shared .NET Core Framework being installed. See docs.microsoft.com for more information.

Install prerequisites

Create a new console project

On the IDE computer:

  • Run dotnet new console -n MyConsoleApp. This will create a new netcoreapp console application called MyConsoleApp.

Build and Deploy

On the IDE computer:

  • In your application's root folder, run dotnet publish
  • Copy all the files under bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.1/publish to your linux-arm device (replace '2.1' with whatever framework you are targeting).
    • To test run your application, on linux-arm, run the entrypoint MyConsoleApp.dll with dotnet. 
      $ ~/dotnet/dotnet MyConsoleApp.dll

Remotely debug your application

Reference the sample launch.json below.

  • The "program" field is set to the dotnet executable and the first "args" item is the application .dll relative to the current working directory ("cwd") on linux-arm.
  • Update the fields under "pipeArgs" to include the IP address of the linux-arm device and the ssh keyfile.
  • The "debuggerPath" points to the location where you installed the debugger to on linux-arm.

Sample launch.json - macOS and Linux

    {
        "name": ".NET Core Remote Launch - Framework Dependent (console)",
        "type": "coreclr",
        "request": "launch",
        "program": "~/dotnet/dotnet",
        "args": [
            "./MyConsoleApp.dll"
        ],
        "cwd": "~/MyConsoleApp",
        "stopAtEntry": false,
        "console": "internalConsole",
        "pipeTransport": {
            "pipeCwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "pipeProgram": "/usr/bin/ssh",
            "pipeArgs": [
                "-T", "-i", "mysshkeyfile",
                "[email protected]"
            ],
            "debuggerPath": "~/vsdbg/vsdbg"
            }
    }

Sample launch.json - Windows

This launch.json requires that PuTTY is installed. You must convert your ssh keyfile to a format that PuTTY understands with puttygen. See How to convert SSH keypairs generated using PuttyGen(Windows) into key-pairs used by ssh-agent and KeyChain(Linux) for tips.

 {
            "name": ".NET Core Remote Launch - Framework Dependent (console)",
            "type": "coreclr",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "~/dotnet/dotnet",
            "args": ["./dotnetapp.dll"],
            "cwd": "~/dotnet-core-app",
            "stopAtEntry": false,
            "console": "internalConsole",
            "pipeTransport": {
                "pipeCwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
                "pipeProgram": "c:\\Program Files\\PuTTY\\plink.exe",
                "pipeArgs": [
                    "-i",
                    "mysshkeyfile.ppk",
                    "[email protected]"
                ],
                "debuggerPath": "~/vsdbg/vsdbg"
            }
        }

It is likely that other tools than PuTTY can be used. They have not been tested.

We are researching if WSL (ssh) can be used to avoid needing to install PuTTY (or similar tool).

Self-Contained Deployment

Self-contained deployments are when all of an applications' dependencies are carried with the deployment. So the only thing that must be installed on the target computer is the native dependencies of .NET Core. See docs.microsoft.com for more information.

Install prerequisites

Create a new console project

On the IDE computer:

  • Run dotnet new console -n MyConsoleApp. This will create a new netcoreapp console application called MyConsoleApp.

Build and Deploy

On the IDE computer:

  • Run dotnet publish -r linux-arm
  • Copy all the files under bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.1/linux-arm/publish/ to linux-arm (replace '2.1' with whatever framework you are targeting).
  • Test your application by running the standalone executable MyConsoleApp. 
    $ ./MyConsoleApp

Remotely debug your standalone application executable

Reference the sample launch.json below.

  • The "program" field is the standalone executable relative to the current working directory ("cwd") on linux-arm.
  • Update the fields under "pipeArgs" to include the IP address of the linux-arm device and the ssh keyfile.
  • The "debuggerPath" points to the location where you installed the debugger to on linux-arm.

Sample launch.json -- macOS and Linux

    {
        "name": ".NET Core Remote Launch - Standalone Application (console)",
        "type": "coreclr",
        "request": "launch",
        "program": "MyConsoleApp",
        "args": [],
        "cwd": "~/MyConsoleApp",
        "stopAtEntry": false,
        "console": "internalConsole",
        "pipeTransport": {
            "pipeCwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
            "pipeProgram": "/usr/bin/ssh",
            "pipeArgs": [
                "-T", "-i", "mysshkeyfile",
                "[email protected]"
            ],
            "debuggerPath": "~/vsdbg/vsdbg"
            }
    }

Sample launch.json - Windows

See Framework Dependent sample above for the appropriate pipeTransport section for Windows.

Configuration

Debugger

Documentation

Developer Guide

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