Debian Launches A Debuginfod Server For Smoother Debugging Experience

Debian is the latest major Linux distribution deploying a Debuginfod web server so that ELF/DWARF/source-code information can be supplied via HTTP to clients on-demand when debugging.

Introduced last year was Debuginfod with GNU Binutils 2.34 for distributing debugging information / source code on demand. Readelf and objdump utilities can query connected Debuginfod servers for source files / data based on a build ID. Debuginfod support was later integrated into the GNU Debugger too (GDB 10.1). The effort was led by Red Hat engineers while now Debian is getting in on this practical feature too.

By running a centralized and public Debuginfod server for the distribution, developers/users can avoid potentially having to install any "debuginfo" packages locally when trying to debug problems as the necessary debugging information symbols can be queried as needed from the distribution's server.

More details on the Debian Debuginfod deployment can be found via this mailing list post. The Debuginfod is currently serving for unstable, testing, test-proposed-updates, stable, stable-backports, and proposed-updates.