Installing EDB Debugger on Ubuntu Linux

Evan's debugger, edb or EDB-debugger is a great OllyDbg-like tool to play with executables, disassemble them, write exploits, etc. In this article I will show how to install it on Ubuntu Linux.

Point is it needs some pre-requisites, and the install guide for it doesn't tell how to install them making the process not-so-straightforward. Here we fix it.

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The edb debugger is a great simple tool helping you to debug binaries and build exploits.

Most probably, you know what it is for if you are reading this, otherwise look here to learn more about it.

Installing edb

First install the packages needed. It is the easiest and fastest way to get your libraries in tact.

On 32bit Ubuntu this worked for me:

sudo apt-get install git build-essential pkg-config
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install qt5-qmake qtcore5-dev libqt5svg5-dev libqt5xmlpatterns5-dev
sudo apt-get install libboost-dev

On 64bit Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install git build-essential 
sudo apt-get install pkg-config cmake  
sudo apt-get install qttools5-dev-tools qt5-qmake qt5-default 
sudo apt-get install libboost-dev

Next, get capstone and build it:

git  clone https://github.com/aquynh/capstone.git

# Use my fork, if the repository moved.
# But better find one which is updated!
# git clone https://github.com/qutorial/capstone.git
cd capstone
./make.sh
sudo ./make.sh install

Finally clone the edb-debugger:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/eteran/edb-debugger.git
# Again, here is my outdate version, which I installed.
# The git modules problem is fixed here.
# But better use the updated one.
# git clone --recursive https://github.com/qutorial/edb-debugger
# Check also the forks of submodules in my github account: github.com/qutorial/

and build it

cd edb-debugger
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

The 'cmake ..' command above might fail for a number of reasons.

The most popular reason is an absent library edb depends on. See the instructions above to install them on Ubuntu.

Another reason to fail might be connected to submodules. Check the .gitmodules file, there were two submodules at the time I wrote this manual. Make sure that both of the submodules are checked out right. In my case both submodules failed to check out.

One reason for this was a git:// url specified for one of them and an HTTP proxy on my way. I submitted a pull request already suggesting to fix it, commit link. You can modify this way the .gitmodules file, then call 'git submodule sync' and 'git submodule update --remote' if you have the same problem.

Another submodule also failed to check out. I gave it a gentle kick with 'git submodule update --remote' and then the cmake command succeeded.

You should be good to go now!

edb

Checkout PEDA if you want something console-based and maybe more powerful.

Edit 1.

This article has been updated on request.

Some Qt package names have apparently changed in Ubuntu.

Thanks for reading my blog!