Dipping toes into Debugging in GDB

I started messing around with trying to reverse engineer compiled cpp files with GDB. I'm in a systems programming class at Harvard SEAS through the DCE program, and our assignment is to defuse a "binary bomb".

Got started working with some little "fun files" that were simple, like this:

        0000000000001459 <_Z3funPKc>:
            1459:       f3 0f 1e fa             endbr64
            145d:       83 c8 ff                or     $0xffffffff,%eax
            1460:       80 3f 00                cmpb   $0x0,(%rdi)
            1463:       74 04                   je     1469 <_Z3funPKc+0x10>
            1465:       0f be 47 01             movsbl 0x1(%rdi),%eax
            1469:       c3                      retq
            146a:       66 0f 1f 44 00 00       nopw   0x0(%rax,%rax,1)
    

This program just requires the user inputs the value "0", and it will succeed. This example is extremely simplistic, but the bomb phases are much harder. I got the first phase defused though! Can't wait to keep working on it.

- jaken