Node.js v4.x-v8.x C++ plugin for the LLDB debugger.
The llnode plugin adds the ability to inspect JavaScript stack frames, objects, source code and more to the standard C/C++ debugging facilities when working with Node.js processes or core dumps in LLDB.
Start an lldb session with the llnode plugin pre-loaded:
npm install -g llnode
llnode node -c core
- For more details on starting llnode see the Usage section.
- To get started with the llnode commands see the Commands section.
To use llnode you need to have the LLDB debugger installed.
- On OS X lldb is installed as part of Xcode. You will need Xcode both to build and run llnode.
- On Linux install the lldb package using your distributions package manager.
npm install -g llnode
To use a particular build of lldb, use the --lldb_exe
option:
npm install --lldb_exe=`which lldb-3.9` -g llnode
brew install llnode
# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/nodejs/llnode.git && cd llnode
# Check out source code of the LLDB that is compatible with OS X's default
# lldb
git clone --depth=1 -b release_39 https://github.com/llvm-mirror/lldb.git lldb
# Initialize GYP
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/external/gyp.git tools/gyp
# Configure
./gyp_llnode
# Build
make -C out/ -j9
# Install
make install-osx
# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/nodejs/llnode.git && cd llnode
# Install lldb and headers
sudo apt-get install lldb-3.8 lldb-3.8-dev
# Initialize GYP
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/external/gyp.git tools/gyp
# Configure
./gyp_llnode -Dlldb_dir=/usr/lib/llvm-3.8/
# Build
make -C out/ -j9
# Install
sudo make install-linux
# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/nodejs/llnode.git && cd llnode
# Install llvm with lldb and headers
pkg install llvm39
rm -f /usr/bin/lldb
ln -s /usr/local/bin/lldb39 /usr/bin/lldb
# Initialize GYP
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/external/gyp.git tools/gyp
# Configure
./gyp_llnode -Dlldb_dir=/usr/local/llvm39/
# Build
gmake -C out/ -j9
(The LLDB function ComputeSystemPluginsDirectory is not implemented on FreeBSD. The plugin library must be loaded manually.)
The simplest method is:
npm install -g llnode
llnode
If you do a global install (npm install -g llnode) you can use the llnode
shortcut script. This starts lldb
and automatically issues the plugin load
command.
All parameters to the llnode script are passed directly to lldb. If you do not do a
local install the shortcut will be in node_modules/.bin/llnode
If you run either make install-linux
or make install-osx
the plugin will installed
in the LLDB system plugin directory, in which case LLDB will load the plugin
automatically on start-up. Using this may require additional permissions to be able to
copy the plugin libary to the system plugin directory.
The llnode plugin can also be manually loaded into LLDB using the
plugin load
command within lldb.
It does not matter whether the plugin load
command is issued before or after
loading a core dump or attaching to a process.
lldb
(lldb) plugin load ./node_modules/llnode/llnode.dylib
To install the plugin in the LLDB system plugin directory, use the
make install-osx
build step above, or if installing
with npm copy node_modules/llnode/llnode.dylib
to
~/Library/Application\ Support/LLDB/PlugIns/
.
lldb
(lldb) plugin load ./node_modules/llnode/llnode.so
To install the plugin in the LLDB system plugin directory, use the
make install-linux
build step above, or if installing with
npm copy node_modules/llnode/llnode.so
to
/usr/lib/lldb/plugins
.
lldb
(lldb) plugin load ./node_modules/llnode/llnode.so
LLDB does not support the system plugin directory on FreeBSD.
To use llnode with a core dump the core dump needs to be loaded into lldb along with the exact executable that created the core dump. The executable contains information that lldb and the llnode plugin need to make sense of the data in the core dump.
To load a core dump when starting llnode use:
llnode /path/to/bin/node -c /path/to/core
or to load the core dump after starting lldb:
(llnode) target create /path/to/bin/node -c /path/to/core
To use llnode against a live process:
llnode -- /path/to/bin/node script.js
(llnode) run
This is ideal for debugging an npm package with native code. To debug a Node.js crash on uncaught exception:
llnode -- /path/to/bin/node --abort_on_uncaught_exception script.js
(llnode) run
lldb will stop your process when it crashes. To see where it stopped use the v8 bt command. See the Commands section below for more commands.
(llnode) v8 help
Node.js helpers
Syntax: v8
The following subcommands are supported:
bt -- Show a backtrace with node.js JavaScript functions and their args. An optional argument is accepted; if
that argument is a number, it specifies the number of frames to display. Otherwise all frames will be
dumped.
Syntax: v8 bt [number]
findjsinstances -- List every object with the specified type name.
Use -v or --verbose to display detailed `v8 inspect` output for each object.
Accepts the same options as `v8 inspect`
findjsobjects -- List all object types and instance counts grouped by typename and sorted by instance count.
Requires `LLNODE_RANGESFILE` environment variable to be set to a file containing memory ranges for the
core file being debugged.
There are scripts for generating this file on Linux and Mac in the scripts directory of the llnode
repository.
findrefs -- Finds all the object properties which meet the search criteria.
The default is to list all the object properties that reference the specified value.
Flags:
* -v, --value expr - all properties that refer to the specified JavaScript object (default)
* -n, --name name - all properties with the specified name
* -s, --string string - all properties that refer to the specified JavaScript string value
inspect -- Print detailed description and contents of the JavaScript value.
Possible flags (all optional):
* -F, --full-string - print whole string without adding ellipsis
* -m, --print-map - print object's map address
* -s, --print-source - print source code for function objects
* -l num, --length num - print maximum of `num` elements from string/array
Syntax: v8 inspect [flags] expr
nodeinfo -- Print information about Node.js
print -- Print short description of the JavaScript value.
Syntax: v8 print expr
source -- Source code information
For more help on any particular subcommand, type 'help <command> <subcommand>'.
This software is licensed under the MIT License.
Copyright Fedor Indutny, 2016.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.