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2025

  • 2 min read

Release 0.8 - Chutoro Nigiri

Hello, debuggers! It's been a while since our last release, but we are excited to announce libdebug version 0.8, codename 🍣 Chutoro Nigiri 🍣. This release brings several new features, improvements, and bug fixes. Here is a summary of the changes:

Features

  • Process/Thread Snapshots & Diffs: Take snapshots of the execution state of the debuggee and compare them across different points in time.
  • Multiprocessing Support: Automatically manage child processes created via fork(), attaching new debuggers to them. This behavior can be customized with the Debugger parameter follow_children.
  • Find References Between Memory Maps: Introduced d.memory.find_pointers to identify all pointers in a memory region that reference another region, useful for detecting memory leaks in cybersecurity applictions.
  • SIGTRAP Signal Handling: Now it is possible to catch SIGTRAP signals, excluding those directly related to debugging, exposing only unrecognized signals from the process or external sources.
  • Defaulted Fast Memory Access (fast_memory=True): Improves performance of memory access. Can be disabled using the fast_memory parameter in Debugger.
  • New Terminal Autodetection for d.gdb(open_in_new_process=True): Ensures GDB opens correctly in a newly detected terminal without user-defined commands.
  • Automatic Symbol Resolution for Unspecified Backing Files: When no specific file is set, symbols are resolved for all memory maps, with a warning due to potential performance impact.

Other Improvements

  • Migration from CFFI to Nanobind.
  • Refined Exception Handling: Standardized across the codebase for improved consistency.
  • Improved IDE Support: Enhancements to improve autocompletion and code suggestions.
  • Exposed zombie attribute in ThreadContext: Allows users to check if a thread is a zombie.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed Memory Leaks: Resolved multiple leaks across various libdebug modules.
  • Fixed SymbolList Slicing: Properly supports slice operations.
  • Improved debuginfod Handling: Enhanced caching logic when a file is not available on debuginfod, improving compatibility with other binaries that use debuginfod on your system.
  • Fixed Resource Access Issues After Detach.
  • Resolved Object Collisions in Event Handling: Addressed key-collision issues in event-related objects (e.g., SyscallHandler, SignalCatcher).
  • Fixed Binary Path Resolution: Prevents incorrect binary paths in certain edge cases.
  • Improved d.gdb for Edge Cases: Fixed several inconsistencies in execution.
  • Fixed step, finish, and next Operations in Callbacks: Now executed correctly.
  • Enhanced Stability & Performance Optimizations.

Testing & CI

  • CI Support for arm64 & Ubuntu 24.04: Improved compatibility and test automation.

Documentation

  • Added Documentation for New Features.
  • Updated Contributing Guidelines.
  • Fixed Broken Links & Missing Pydocs.
  • Added Reference to Published Research Poster at a Top Conference.

New Contributors