Investigating Defects

When Metalware discovers a defect, it appears on the Analysis Page with a classification. Select any defect to see its full details, including a root cause analysis and stack trace.

Debugging Tools

Three debugging tools are available for reproducing and investigating defects: the Ghidra plugin, the Binary Ninja plugin, and remote GDB.

Feature	Ghidra	Binary Ninja	GDB
Time-travel stepping	Yes	Yes	Yes
Register/memory inspection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Breakpoints/watchpoints	Yes	Yes	Yes
Coverage overlays	Yes	Yes	No
MMIO stream visibility	Yes	Yes	No
Taint analysis	Yes	Yes	No

Ghidra Plugin

For installation and usage, see the Ghidra plugin repository.

Binary Ninja Plugin

For installation and usage, see the Binary Ninja plugin repository.

GDB

GDB is useful if you don’t have Ghidra or Binary Ninja, or if you need to script your debugging session. Install the Metalware CLI (uv tool install metalware) and run metalware setup so it has the server URL and API key.

1. Select GDB Debug from the Actions pane.

2. Copy the command from the dialog and run it locally. It looks like:

   arm-none-eabi-gdb -ex "target remote | metalware gdb --run <run_id> --testcase <testcase_id>"

   The CLI authenticates and tunnels GDB through the Metalware API. There is no host:port to connect to.

3. After GDB connects, load your binary:

   file myfirmware.elf

Monitor Commands

Command	Description
monitor help	List all available commands.
monitor reset	Reset the VM to its initial state (equivalent to a JTAG reset).
monitor icount	Print the current instruction count.
monitor back	Step back one instruction.
monitor step N	Step forward N instructions.
monitor goto N	Jump execution to instruction count N.
monitor backtrace	Print the current call stack.
monitor snapshot	Save the current VM state.
monitor restore	Restore the VM from a saved snapshot.
monitor pcode	Show the P-code IL for the current instruction.
monitor memory-map	Print the memory layout.