How Debuggers Work

Have you ever wondered what really happens when you set a breakpoint? Debuggers are one of the most important tools in the belt of any developer, but they are often seen as a magic black box. This talk will demystify native debuggers by showing how the utilities you use every day actually work under the hood.

You’ll get a peek into the inner workings of breakpoints, register and memory manipulation, debug information, stepping, stack unwinding, expression evaluation, and more. X64 Linux systems will be used as an example, but most of the concepts are applicable to other platforms.