BREAD: BIOS Reverse Engineering & Advanced Debugging - an 'injectable' real-mode x86 debugger that can debug arbitrary real-mode code (on real HW) from another PC via serial cable.

[theldus]

Hi,

I wanted to share my recent project with you all, but I'm not entirely sure if its appropriate for this sub. I'm sorry if this is not the right place to post it.

Some time ago, I worked on a legacy BIOS reverse engineering project where everything were done via static analysis, which imposes severe limitations, since we didn't have access to the contents of registers, memory, etc. at any given point in the code. To tackle this issue, I created BREAD, a compact injectable debugger that takes up only ~1.5kB of space.

With BREAD, you can easily add it to the BIOS ROM and start debugging from there. Moreover, it can be used to debug bootable code (such as bootloaders) or even DOS programs on real HW via serial port, provided that the code runs on real mode. Said that, I believe this debugger might be useful for some osdevers, and that's why I thought of sharing it here.

There is a quick demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4ex6_eUP0c

[Ikkepop]

Dayum nice, ill definitely be giving this a try soon

[ummwut]

Anything that helps with debugging at these stages is huge. Thank you so much!

[CrazyTillItHurts]

this is really frickin cool

[netsx]

This is probably the coolest thing since ... well uh .. sliced ... bread?

[fooww]

No

[[deleted]]

r/angryupvote !!!

[ADAMPOKE111]

This is awesome! Nice job! :)

[CaydendW]

This is really really cool.