Aim: Trying to perform a code walkthrough of what functions are getting called for sending and receiving packets over the network.

I am building a kernel and using gdb for debugging/ tracing purposes.

I have build a vm using the following command :

time sudo ubuntu-vm-builder qemu precise --arch 'amd64'  --mem '1024'  --rootsize '4096'  --swapsize '1024'  --kernel-flavour 'generic'  --hostname 'ubuntu'  --components 'main'  --name 'Bob'  --user 'ubuntu'  --pass 'ubuntu' --bridge 'br0'  --libvirt 'qemu:///system'

And I can run the VM successfully in qemu using the following command:

qemu-system-x86_64 -smp 1 -drive file=tmpGgEOzK.qcow2 "$@" -net nic -net user -serial stdio -redir tcp:2222::22

Now, I want to debug the kernel using gdb. For this I need an executable with debug symbols(vmlinux), which apparently I don't have, as the vm-builder never asked for any such options and simply created a .qcow2 file.

Question 1: Am I taking the correct approach to solve the problem and is there an easier way to do it?

Question 2: Is there a way to debug this kernel using GDB?

P.S: I don't have hardware support for KVM.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks.