Investigating Defects

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

Defect detail view showing classification, 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.

Select GDB Debug from the Actions pane.
Follow the instructions in the dialog.
Connect and 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.