doc: add example case for tuple (host, port pair) in gdb.attach

[RocketMaDev]

In gdb.attach, target can be host, port pair, but this is not documented below. Recently I ran into a case where I need to debug the remote binary while I still would like to utilize local gdb.

I started xinetd on port A to deliver gdbserver which listens on port B. To debug the target binary, I first connected to port A with remote and started gdb to attach to port B, then I could interact with the target while I was able to set breakpoints.

I realize this is a perfect example case to demonstrate how could pwntools debug remote apps with local gdb.

[peace-maker]

Is the example added in #2291 lacking? Or how does your setup differ here? Is bash and gdbserver running on a different host?

[RocketMaDev]

In my setup, both gdbserver and the target program are on the "remote" machine (I use 127.0.0.1 as an example), while #2291 launches local gdbserver.

As the old doc launches gdbserver locally, that confuses me a bit as I had to make debugging remotely instead of locally.

Maybe that part of doc could be deleted? Because gdb.debug does that job, and my case can't be done with gdb.debug.

[Arusekk]

Can you add a socat listener somewhere? So that the tests really test.

[RocketMaDev]

Can you add a socat listener somewhere? So that the tests really test.

OK, I could do that. But what about the similar doc in #2291? How can I modify my doc?

[peace-maker]

I think it's enough to change the documentation showing you can use gdb.attach((IP, port)) tuples to not say it has to be a local gdb stub. The test is a manual local gdbserver because I can't start a remote gdbserver from the doctests :D We can improve the docs there to explicitly say that the gdbserver can be running anywhere. But I don't know if your example of starting gdbserver when connecting to a socket using xinetd or socat isn't too specific. That seems better suited in a tutorial?

pwntools/pwnlib/gdb.py

Lines 1041 to 1062 in fb2ee19

	Attach to a gdbserver / gdbstub running on the local machine
	by specifying the host and port tuple it is listening on.
	(gdbserver always listens on 0.0.0.0)
	>>> gdbserver = process(['gdbserver', '1.2.3.4:12345', '/bin/bash'])
	>>> gdbserver.recvline_contains(b'Listening on port', timeout=10)
	b'Listening on port 12345'
	>>> pid = gdb.attach(('0.0.0.0', 12345), gdbscript='''
	... tbreak main
	... commands
	... call puts("Hello from gdbserver debugger!")
	... continue
	... end
	... ''')
	>>> gdbserver.recvline(timeout=10) # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
	b'Remote debugging from host 127.0.0.1, ...\n'
	>>> gdbserver.recvline(timeout=10)
	b'Hello from gdbserver debugger!\n'
	>>> gdbserver.sendline(b'echo Hello from bash && exit')
	>>> gdbserver.recvline(timeout=10)
	b'Hello from bash\n'
	>>> gdbserver.close()

[peace-maker]

If you have ssh access you can use gdb.ssh_gdb to start a gdbserver on the remote and use the local gdb to connect to it through ssh port forwarding. That might be what you were looking for in the first place. I just noticed it only has an example script and no doc comment which causes it to not show in in the docs. That's not optimal 😅

[RocketMaDev]

Well, I come up with this idea when I'm reproducing CVE-2024-2961. Though ssh forwarding is suitable for a real machine or virtual machine, it's too heavy for container. As the cve has been fixed already, and the lib with bug is loaded dynamically, it's hard to reproduce the bug just with patchelf. As a result, I start a ubuntu:noble-20240423 in which the bug still exists, and place my poc on it.

In this case, if I start a ssh, obviously it will cost too much. So I start a xinted to deliver gdbserver.