Debugging MIPS Programs in IDA Pro

Many embedded devices use the MIPS CPU architecture in their implementations to run for example Linux, which is one of the most popular implementations. MIPS - Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages is a cheap and effective RISC architecture that comes in 32bit and 64bit versions. It is also bi-endian.

As such, the need to be able to debug applications for this architecture quickly arises, not only from a design point of view but also from a security point of view.

One method is to use for example JTAG but that requires a functional JTAG port and an interface.

Prerequisites

There are a few tools that need to be in place before we begin.

Preparing the QEMU virtual machine

Start the QEMU VM using the following command:

The “-user” argument sets up a user space network connection to the VM. The

Try SSH into your machine

ssh root@localhost

Perhaps one day I will write a guide on how to build the distro from scratch. But for now, we will settle using this method

Starting Your Sample

scp user@localhost;/target/path/in/guest

Hooking up IDA Pro to the QEMU Guest

Last but not least, start IDA Pro and load the program you are debugging in the QEMU guest.