WinDbg between two VMWare virtual machines

[bobdolebananaphone]

I've followed the instructions here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/devices_serial_debug_gsx.html

and here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/devices_serial_connect2vms_gsx.html

I've tried naming my serial ports (sorry for the formatting, the forum
filtered out the names before)

\ \ . \ pipe \ com_1 on both

\ \ . \ pipe \ com_2 on server and \ \ . \ pipe \ com_1 on the client

\ \ . \ pipe \ com2 on server, \ \ . \ pipe \ com1 on client

\ \ . \ pipe \ com1 on both (which is what I'm using now)

On the client I can start WinDbg 6.9.0003.113 (the newest at the time of
writing) on the client, and if I select Kernel Debug and then whether I
select the Pipe checkbox or not, and set the Port to just "com1" it will then
say "Opened <newline> Waiting to reconnect" and then the bottom of the windbg
window says "Debuggee not connected". I find this weird though that it's
working with (and I define working as WinDbg as not giving an error, and the
fact that I see the occasional flash of activity across the serial port
status icon at the bottom of the vmware window). But I see no serial port
activity on the server VM.

First can someone confirm whether I'm supposed to have the serial ports
named the same thing on both VMs, and then can someone suggest a simple way
to test that the connectivity is there, so I can see if it's that the serial
ports aren't connected, or whether it's that the debuggee isn't set up to be
debugged?

I also would note that I set the /debugport=\\.\pipe\com1 and
/baudrate=115200 in the C:\boot.ini file, so I'm booting the server with
debugging enabled.

Thanks

Bob

[Sreekarun]

I would suggest these steps :-)

Create a vm which would be acting as the client (system which will be
debugged)
Add a new hardware -> Serial device and name it as \\.\pipe\com_1
"This end is the server"
"Other end is an application"
Select yield CPU on poll

Boot up the client VM and open boot.ini for editing

Add a new os line with the debug option

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional- with debug" /noexecute=alwaysoff /fastdetect /debug
/debugport=com1 /baudrate=115200

Note: change according to local disk structure.

Reboot the system in debug mode.

open up windbg select kernel debugging and select option as pipe

windbg -k com:port=\\.\pipe\com_1,pipe

--
Cheers!!!