GDB Switch

GDB Switch is a GDB plug-in that can help you manage your GDB plug-ins effortlessly and gracefully with a single command and a JSON file.

Features

Turn on a gdb plug-in by directly passing the plug-in name to gdbswitch
Turn on a gdb plug-in by passing the plug-in name inside an environment variable (gdbswitch -e NAME)

How to install it?

Make sure you have GDB 8.0 or higher compiled with Python3.6+ bindings, then:

Download this plug-in:

git clone https://github.com/lebr0nli/GDB-Switch.git

Use ./install.sh to install it or:

mkdir -p "$HOME/.gdb-switch/"
cp gdbinit-switch.py "$HOME/.gdb-switch/gdbinit-switch.py"
cp plugins.json "$HOME/.gdb-switch/plugins.json"

Usage

First, you need to change ~/.gdb-switch/plugins.json to fit your setup, for example:

{
    "default": "pwndbg",
    "pwndbg": "/pwndbg/gdbinit.py",
    "gef": "~/.gdbinit-gef.py"
}

Note "default" is a default plug-in if you pass an empty env variable to gdbswitch, you can change its value to null if you want.

Add source ~/.gdb-switch/gdbinit-switch.py to the first line of ~/.gdbinit.

Example 1

This ~/.gdbinit will turn on gef:

source ~/.gdb-switch/gdbinit-switch.py
gdbswitch gef

Example 2

This ~/.gdbinit will turn on GDB plug-in via an environment variable:

source ~/.gdb-switch/gdbinit-switch.py
gdbswitch -e GDB

By using this, you can quickly switch between gef and pwndbg by using export GDB=pwndbg or export GDB=gef.

Or, if you use pwntools for pwning, you can use gef to debug your binary file by writing:

context.terminal = ["tmux", "splitw", "-h", "-e", "GDB=gef"]
io = gdb.debug([exe.path], gdbscript=GDB_SCRIPT)

If you want to switch to pwndbg:

context.terminal = ["tmux", "splitw", "-h", "-e", "GDB=pwndbg"]
io = gdb.debug([exe.path], gdbscript=GDB_SCRIPT)

Bugs, suggestions, and ideas

If you found any bug, or you have any suggestions/ideas about this plug-in, feel free to leave your feedback on the GitHub issue page or send me a pull request!

Thanks!