Toolchains and Setup

June 24, 2025 · View on GitHub

Some useful tools

hexagon-lldb

Useful for debugging the hexagon firmware.

How to get

  • Download Hexagon SDK from Qualcomm software center. This requires a valid license.
  • Extract the zip and hexagon-lldb is under the path /tools/HEXAGON_Tools/8.7.03/Tools/bin/

How to use

See Using hexagon-lldb.

QXDM (Qualcomm eXtensible Diagnostic Monitor)

A diagnostic tool used for debugging, monitoring, and analyzing Qualcomm-based devices

How to get

  • Download QXDM from the Qualcomm [software center](Qualcomm® eXtensible Diagnostic Monitor 5). This requires a valid license.

How to use

  1. Connect the Qualcomm based device to the PC (where QXDM is installed) via USB. The device needs to be in 'Diagnostig Mode' to communicate with QXDM
  2. Select the communication port
  3. Monitor live data or run commands QXDM can be used to view logs, for real-time monitoring, collecting diagnostic data or sending AT commands.

Manually fixing the qemu-libafl-bridge for hexagon code

If it is required to fix some code in qemu-libafl-bridge to get the hexagon emulation work, this needs to be done manually by picking the right code from quic/qemu. Search for the branch hexagon_sysemu_* and select the version that is closest to the branch in qemu-libafl-bridge and merge/cherry pick the fix.

Available Qualcomm Documentation

Some useful qualcomm manuals are: