Debugging an ARM (STM32) Microcontroller using Qt Creator
I actually work with this setup, it works wonderful.
First make sure you use a recent Qt Creator version. I downloaded mine from the website. In some Linux repositories it is outdated and does not support the BareMetal plugin, and/or QBS (which is quite useful).
Requisites:
- Qt Creator (download from QT site)
- ARM GCC (Ubuntu: apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi)
- GDB source archive (download from archive)
- OpenOCD (Ubuntu: apt-get install openocd)
Versions used: Qt Creator 3.6.0, ARM GCC 4.8.2-14ubuntu1+6, ARM GDB 7.6/7.10 with python support and OpenOCD 0.7.0.
1) Install Qt Creator. Open Help -> About Plugins. Find category Device Support and check BareMetal.
2) Go to Tools -> Options. There are a few settings we need to create and adjust in order to compile for an ARM Cortex controller.
a) Go to "Bare Metal" (last category) - add a debugger of your choice. I personally use OpenOCD. At this point you can set the connection to gdb and it's port, as well as init commands. The standard commands are set for STM32F4xx chips - but I guess you can modify it to work with any ARM Cortex controller.
b) Go to "Devices". Add a new device, choose Bare Metal and the GDB provider you have just created. There is nothing else to setup here.
c) Go to "Build & Run" - tab Debuggers. This has been the most trickiest thing to do.
You need an arm gdb version with python scripting support. At the time (about 9 months back when I write this post) the binaries in Ubuntu repo does not have this option. You can save a lot of time/hassle by checking if this has changed.
Nevertheless if you do need to compile GDB with python supporet, here is how to do it. Download GDB from the download archives. I still use GDB-7.6 which seems to work fine, but for this tutorial I have recompiled it for GDB-7.10.
Extract the source archive. Open in terminal and run "./configure --with-python --target=arm-elf". This sets up the make environment for ARM targets with python scripting enabled. Then run make. This takes a while, depending on your system speed. Unfortunately you may be a bit on your own once the compilation stops because of dependency issues. Don't be afraid - this happened to me on my first try too and I figured it out with a bunch of google searches! If python fails, make sure to install the python2.x-dev package (check your version no - likely 2.7). Assuming compilation went well, you can find the gdb executable in the main directory.
If you're on Mac, the process will likely be similar. But I am not familiar with OSX. If you're on Windows, sorry you will need to google a bit on how to do this with Mingw or whatever (honestly I don't know). Or maybe find binaries that have this support enabled.
Once you acquired a gdb executable, call it e.g. "ARM GDB" and set the path to it. I personally don't bother to place it in /usr/bin/, but I guess you could.
This window will throw an error if you use a gdb executable that is not compiled with Python Scripting.
d) Tab "Build & Run" - "Compilers"
Create a new "GCC compiler" and call it "ARM GCC". For path use "/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc". The "ABI" is not really important, I have just set it to arm-unknown-unknown-unknown-32bit.
e) Tab "Build & Run" - "Kits". Add a new kit, I called mine "ARM Bare Metal". Device type: "Bare Metal" Device: point to the Device you have created with it's OpenOCD/St link GDB server Sysroot: leave it empty Compiler: ARM GCC Debugger: ARM GDB Qt Version: None - You obviously cannot run the QT runtime on a Cortex m4! Cmake tool: unused
Make sure there are no warnings in any of the Build & Run tab
3) Make your make/qmake/QBS project. On left side go to tab "projects" and at left-top add the "ARM Bare Metal" kit. This should work without errors. Your project may start out with a desktop kit. Replacing usually does not work. In that case add an ARM kit and then remove the desktop one.
4) Start your OpenOcd server. I use a STM32F4 discovery for development, and also off-board programming to my own STM32 boards. For any STM32F40x/STM32F41x targets run:
openocd -f board/stm32f4discovery.cfg
This starts a gdb server at port 3333 and a telnet server (for OpenOCD commands) at 4444. As a shortcut I create a few .sh files in my home directory for a quick startup of a GDB server.
5) Start the debug session. It should program and run!
You can set breakpoints, step through code, even more PC back, watch call stack, variables (locals / watch), and disassembly. I'm really quited please with this, but obviously it lacks a few things like: 1) "Register view". Yes it has one, but that's just the CPU registers. I want register view of my peripherals as well. 2) Download progress or more detailed info about connection state. You need to refer to openocd for this.
edit: I have put up an example project on this Github repository.. It contains this post with a few dialog screenshots added, as well as a blinky project for the STM32F4 Discovery board using a QBS project in Qt Creator.