pwndbg/pwndbg 2025.01.20

2025.01.20 Release

on GitHub

This release features LLDB support, improved performance, bug fixes and enhanced embedded systems experience. Pwndbg can now run on macOS (both Intel & Apple Silicon) and allows for debugging Mach-O binaries.

Thanks to everyone who made it happen, especially (for most commits) to @patryk4815, @mbrla0, @peace-maker, and @fidgetingbits!

Want to support us or buy us a coffee? See our Pwndbg sponsors page!

Also, want to split Pwndbg context displays with tmux? See jcfg's blog post!

Major changes

• New features
  • Added LLDB support. Most of Pwndbg functionality was ported to a debugger-agnostic library (aglib) that supports both GDB and LLDB. See also "When to use GDB or LLDB" and GDB vs LLDB commands.
  • Added macOS and Mach-O support via LLDB (Intel & Apple Silicon)
    • pwndbg-gdb also works on macOS, but only for remote debugging (e.g., target remote 0:1337)
  • Added support for text user interface (TUI) in GDB (set with tui layout pwndbg or tui layout pwndbg_code)
  • Added context history. The displayed contexts are saved in history and can be re-seen with contextprev and contextnext commands
• New commands added:
  • gdt <addr> - dumps Global Descriptor Table entries from a given address
  • strings - search memory for readable strings, like with the strings CLI utility
  • jemalloc_heap, jemalloc_extent_info, jemalloc_find_extent - inspect jemalloc heap allocator structures
  • hijack-fd <fd> <newfile> - modify the process file descriptor
  • kallsyms and klookup - added Linux kernel debugging helpers for looking up symbol tables
  • profiler {start,stop} - added a profiler command to benchmark Pwndbg performance/bottlenecks
• Improvements
  • Improved the experience with embedded systems debugging (better vmmap detection; improved vmmap_add and vmmap_load commands)
  • The ropgadget command now dumps memory and finds gadgets in all executable regions
  • context <section[s]> now has --on|--off toggle to temporarily disable sub-sections
  • plist now supports --offset and --count to limit the linked list elements to be printed
  • Added vmmap -C <N> <filter> command to display N pages before/after the filtered one
  • Speed up syntax highlighting via pygments and Pwndbg startup time
• Others
  • Dropped Python 3.8 / Ubuntu 20.04 / Debian 11 support
  • Lots and lots of bug fixes

Full changelog

The full changelog can be found here: 2024.08.29...2025.01.20

New Contributors

• @itaysnir made their first contribution in #2408
• @AadishJ made their first contribution in #2433
• @gfelber made their first contribution in #2431
• @MY7H404 made their first contribution in #2460
• @Polaris-Snowfall made their first contribution in #2466
• @jkub6 made their first contribution in #2482
• @giuseppelettieri made their first contribution in #2484
• @AndersFelde made their first contribution in #2478
• @kapiw04 made their first contribution in #2505
• @koalajoe23 made their first contribution in #2599
• @ksen-lin made their first contribution in #2595
• @JasonnnW3000 made their first contribution in #2660
• @beatweichsler made their first contribution in #2668
• @richyliu made their first contribution in #2670