How to debug programs with “sudo” in VSCODE

Question

I am trying to debug a program in VSCODE. The program needs to be launched as root or with "sudo" on Ubuntu. What's the best way to achieve this? An example launch configuration would be helpful. Thanks.

Answer 1

Do not know the way to make vscode to run sudo gdb. But you can sudo to run vscode so natually you can sudo gdb for debug.

sudo code . --user-data-dir='.'

Answer 2

I did the following:

1. create a script called "gdb" in e.g. my home directory, containing: pkexec /usr/bin/gdb "$@"
2. make it executable
3. modify the launch.json in VSCode to call the script (obviously change username accordingly) by adding "miDebuggerPath":

...
            "externalConsole": false,
            "miDebuggerPath": "/home/<username>/gdb",
            "MIMode": "gdb",
...

4. whilst debugging, use top or such like to verify the process is running as root.

That should be enough.