FEBUG-ABI(5) File Formats Manual FEBUG-ABI(5)

struct febug_message, struct stop_febug_message, struct attn_febug_message —
User-space debugfs ABI

#include <febug-abi.h>

struct febug_message;
struct stop_febug_message;
struct attn_febug_message;

The febug ABI consists of two messages sent from the program wishing to be debugged to febug(8), and one sent from febug(8) to the program.

To be debugged, the program must create a socket with socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0) and connect(2) to the appropriate end-point (/var/run/febug.sock, conventionally). The filesystem will then immediately acquire effective credentials from the client. After febug(8) receives credentials, a directory corresponding to the debugged process' PID will be created in the filesystem.

All messages must be sent in a single send(2) or sendmsg(2) call, specifying the exact size of the message, as that's what's used to differentiate between different messages. febug(8) will ignore messages (whose sizes) it does not recognise.

Afterward, for each variable of interest, the process should send a 4096-byte febug_message, defined as follows:

struct [[packed]] febug_message {
    uint64_t variable_id;
    uint64_t variable_type;
    uint8_t  signal;
    char     name[/* Enough to bring the overall size to 4096. */];
};
Wherein
variable_id
is the locally unique identifier of the variable (e.g. a pointer to that variable).
variable_type
is arbitrary user data, passed back to the program verbatim (e.g. a function pointer to a formatter).
signal
is the signal to send to the program when a variable is to be read (see below).
name
is the globally unique name of this variable — a NUL terminator is respected but not required if the name truly spans to the final byte. If the same as one of the already-present variables, it will be overridden.

When febug(8) receives a febug_message, it creates a file under the process' directory. When that file is opened, febug(8) will:

  1. send the process an attn_febug_message with a single file descriptor via SCM_RIGHTS auxilliary data (see cmsg(3)) representing the write end of a pipe.
  2. kill(2) the process with the signal from the signal field if it wasn't SIGKILL.

Note, that the sent file descriptor must be closed by the program when it's done serialising the variable, and therefore, if the process opts not to receive a signal, it must handle the message through some other mechanism.

attn_febug_message is 16 bytes, and defined as follows:

struct [[packed]] attn_febug_message {
    uint64_t variable_id;
    uint64_t variable_type;
};
Both fields correspond to the ones sent in the febug_message that installed the variable.

The process may receive any number of attn_febug_messages until it sends an 8-byte stop_febug_message, defined as follows:

struct [[packed]] stop_febug_message {
    uint64_t variable_id;
};
Upon receipt, the corresponding variable, if any, is unlinked.

When the process' end of the socket is closed, all extant variables are freed, and the process' directory is removed.

libfebug(3), libfebug++(3), and libfebug.rs(3) — libraries that wrap this ABI.

To all who support further development, in particular:

febug tracker

febug mailing list: <~nabijaczleweli/febug@lists.sr.ht>, archived at https://lists.sr.ht/~nabijaczleweli/febug

June 12, 2023 febug 0.2.1