The problem
I am able to set and reach a breakpoint if I compile and run from the host, but if I do it from within the docker container gdb does not hit the breakpoints that were set.
Steps to reproduce (all snippets are copy-paste ready)
Create a docker file:
cat << EOF > Dockerfile
FROM ubuntu
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y build-essential gdb
EOF
Build an image and run an interactive session in it:
docker build -t gdb_problem_testing . && docker run --rm -it gdb_problem_testing bash
From inside of the container create small main.cpp, compile, and run gdb:
cat <<EOF > main.cpp && g++ -g main.cpp && gdb -ex 'break 5' -ex 'run' ./a.out
#include <iostream>
int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
std::cout << "hi\n";
return 0;
}
EOF
Observe the gdb output:
GNU gdb (Ubuntu 7.7.1-0ubuntu5~14.04.2) 7.7.1
[Skipped gdb greeting]
Reading symbols from ./a.out...done.
Breakpoint 1 at 0x40078c: file main.cpp, line 5.
1 #include <iostream>
2
3 int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
4 {
5 std::cout << "hi\n";
6 return 0;
7 }
Starting program: /a.out
hi
During startup program exited normally.
(gdb)
From the output one can see that the breakpoint was not hit, although the program was executed (printed 'hi') and exited successfully. I guess the most important thing here is that the program did run and that the message During startup program exited normally is an anomalous behavior (according to GDB ignores my breakpoints )
Question
What is preventing gdb from setting the breakpoint and how to fix this?
What I tried so far
As suggested here, I tried to change a line in
/etc/apparmor.d/docker
(I did it in the host): substituteprofile docker-default flags=(attach_disconnected,mediate_deleted) {
byprofile docker-default flags=(attach_disconnected,mediate_deleted,complain) {
. Then run the docker container, compile, and gdb. The result was the same:During startup program exited normally
.As suggested in another answer, from within the container, I tried to do
strace -f -o syscall.txt gdb ./a.out
, but I get the following error:strace: test_ptrace_setoptions_followfork: PTRACE_TRACEME doesn't work: Permission denied strace: test_ptrace_setoptions_followfork: unexpected exit status 1
but I do not understand how to work this around. I tried to start the container as root:
sudo docker run --rm -it gdb_problem_testing bash
and then tried the strace -- this gave me the same error. I must admit I do not understand how the user privileges are managed by the docker, i.e. what user rights the root inside of the container has and from whom does it inherit the rights (from the docker daemon?). Since I able to hit the breakpoint, when I run gdb in the host, I suspect that my problem would boil down to the user rights, but I do not know how to approach it.In the host I tried to do
echo 0 | sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope
as suggested in yet another answer.