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debugging x86_64 elf on mac silicon

date: Jan 17, 2026reading: 2 min read

how to debug x86_64 elf(linux) binaries on mac silicon(m series)

gdb
debug
mac

apple silicon is ARM. x86_64 ELF binaries are linux/intel. there is no native path — rosetta 2 translates mach-o x86_64, not ELF, and lldb on macOS cannot attach to ELF targets regardless.

the only correct approach is a real x86_64 environment.

lima

run an x86_64 linux vm with lima.

brew install lima qemu
limactl start --arch=x86_64 --vm-type=qemu

access it with lima, then use gdb normally inside the vm.

note: lima uses QEMU TCG (software emulation) for non-native architectures. Apple's Hypervisor framework only accelerates native ARM guests, so x86_64 emulation is slow. expect 5-10x slowdown compared to native. this is not a lima issue.

kali vm workaround

the normal kali iso and the kali vm image from kali.org don't work on lima.

the workaround: debian vm + kali tools on top.

kali.yaml:

vmType: "qemu"
os: "Linux"
arch: "x86_64"
 
images:
  - location: "https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/bookworm/latest/debian-12-generic-amd64.qcow2"
    arch: "x86_64"
 
cpus: 4
memory: "4GiB"
disk: "60GiB"
 
firmware:
  legacyBIOS: false
 
mounts:
  - location: "~"
    writable: true
 
ssh:
  localPort: 0
  loadDotSSHPubKeys: true
 
containerd:
  system: false
  user: false
 
provision:
  - mode: system
    script: |
      #!/bin/bash
      set -eux -o pipefail
      export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
      apt update
      apt upgrade -y
      apt install -y gnupg2 apt-transport-https
      echo "deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free non-free-firmware" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kali.list
      wget -q -O - https://archive.kali.org/archive-key.asc | gpg --dearmor > /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/kali-archive-keyring.gpg
      apt update
      apt install -y kali-linux-core
limactl start kali.yaml
limactl shell kali

optional kali toolset install:

  • kali-linux-headless — no-gui tools
  • kali-linux-default — default tools
  • kali-linux-everything — all tools
  • kali-tools-reverse-engineering — re tools only

alternatives

utm — if you want a gui. same underlying QEMU performance as lima. easier for multiple vms.

gdbserver — run gdbserver inside the vm, connect from a gdb client on the host. faster iteration than shelling into the vm every time.

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