`pwndbg` (/paʊnˈdiˌbʌɡ/) is a GDB plug-in that makes debugging with GDB suck less, with a focus on features needed by low-level software developers, hardware hackers, reverse-engineers and exploit developers.
It has a boatload of features, see [FEATURES.md](FEATURES.md) and [CHEATSHEET](https://drive.google.com/file/d/16t9MV8KTFXK7oX_CzXhmDdaVnjT8IYM4/view?usp=drive_link) (feel free to print it!).
Vanilla GDB is terrible to use for reverse engineering and exploit development. Typing `x/g30x $esp` is not fun, and does not confer much information. The year is 2024 and GDB still lacks a real hexdump command! GDB's syntax is arcane and difficult to approach. Windbg users are completely lost when they occasionally need to bump into GDB.
Pwndbg is a Python module which is loaded directly into GDB, and provides a suite of utilities and crutches to hack around all of the cruft that is GDB and smooth out the rough edges.
Many other projects from the past (e.g., [gdbinit][gdbinit], [PEDA][PEDA]) and present (e.g. [GEF][GEF]) exist to fill some these gaps. Each provides an excellent experience and great features -- but they're difficult to extend (some are unmaintained, and all are a single [100KB][gdbinit2], [200KB][peda.py], or [363KB][gef.py] file (respectively)).
Pwndbg exists not only to replace all of its predecessors, but also to have a clean implementation that runs quickly and is resilient against all the weird corner cases that come up. It also comes batteries-included, so all of its features are available if you run `setup.sh`.
Pwndbg is supported on Ubuntu 22.04, and 24.04 with GDB 12.1 and later. We do not test on any older versions of Ubuntu, so `pwndbg` may not work on these versions (for Ubuntu 18.04 use the [2023.07.17: ubuntu18.04-final release](https://github.com/pwndbg/pwndbg/releases/tag/2023.07.17)). We may accept pull requests fixing issues in older versions on a case by case basis, please discuss this with us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/x47DssnGwm) first. You can also always checkout an older version of `pwndbg` from around the time the Ubuntu version you're interested in was still supported by Canonical, or you can attempt to build a newer version of GDB from source.
If you use any Linux distribution other than Ubuntu, we recommend using the [latest available GDB](https://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/download/) built from source. You can build it as:
Pwndbg is an open-source project, maintained by [many contributors](https://github.com/pwndbg/pwndbg/graphs/contributors)!
Pwndbg was originally created by [Zach Riggle](https://github.com/zachriggle), who is no longer with us. We want to thank Zach for all of his contributions to Pwndbg and the wider security community.
