Generic Proxy RSP Server

Generic Proxy RSP Server

[Jeremy Bennett]

I recently had to port GDB to a new embedded DSP architecture before the
chip was available either in Silicon or model. All I had was the ABI
specification, a GCC compiler and a promise of a cycle accurate model in
a few weeks.

In the absence of any target, I created a simple proxy for RSP, which
was capable of modeling blocks of memory and registers, initialized
according to the ABI specification. This allowed me to test the
architecture definition in the GDB client against the ABI before the
target was ready.

When the target became available (as a model), I was able to quickly
write an RSP server, with some confidence that the GDB client would be
working reasonably accurately.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to do this, but thinking it could be
useful to others, I've packaged up the code and written a user guide for
it (all GPL). It should be configurable to act as a proxy for any "bare
metal" embedded target.

        http://www.embecosm.com/download/esp7.html

I'm very happy to donate the code to GDB if people think it would be a
useful addition.

Feedback and comments welcome.


Jeremy

-- 
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Email:   jeremy.bennett@embecosm.com
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Re: Generic Proxy RSP Server

[Michael Snyder]

Jeremy Bennett wrote:
> I recently had to port GDB to a new embedded DSP architecture before the
> chip was available either in Silicon or model. All I had was the ABI
> specification, a GCC compiler and a promise of a cycle accurate model in
> a few weeks.
> 
> In the absence of any target, I created a simple proxy for RSP, which
> was capable of modeling blocks of memory and registers, initialized
> according to the ABI specification. This allowed me to test the
> architecture definition in the GDB client against the ABI before the
> target was ready.
> 
> When the target became available (as a model), I was able to quickly
> write an RSP server, with some confidence that the GDB client would be
> working reasonably accurately.
> 
> I'm sure I'm not the first person to do this, but thinking it could be
> useful to others, I've packaged up the code and written a user guide for
> it (all GPL). It should be configurable to act as a proxy for any "bare
> metal" embedded target.
> 
>         http://www.embecosm.com/download/esp7.html
> 
> I'm very happy to donate the code to GDB if people think it would be a
> useful addition.
> 
> Feedback and comments welcome.

I've had to do something similar, so I recognize the utilitity.

But by the way "RSP"?  Is that remote serial port, route/switch
processor, or revolutionary socialist party?   1/2  ;-)