Check Debug Connection with System Configuration Checker

Intel® System Debugger User Guide

ID 648476

Date 06/13/2024

Version

Confidential

System Configuration Checker is a diagnostic utility that can help you resolve debug connection issues and enable debugging of an IA platform using Intel® System Debugger. The System Configuration Checker EFI application reads the debug enabling Memory I/O (MMIO) registers and Machine Specific Register (MSR) from the target hardware platform and diagnoses whether those are correctly configured.

System Configuration Checker key goal is to ensure that the target platform is ready for being debugged. For example, the tool checks if CPU run control is enabled and Intel® Direct Connect Interface (Intel® DCI) is enabled for platform debugging. The System Configuration Checker diagnoses debug-related registers and informs you whether they are configured correctly or not.

Set Up and Diagnose Debug Connection

The following diagram shows the typical debug connection setup flow in Intel® System Debugger. You can launch the System Configuration Checker EFI application when the Intel® Direct Connect Interface (Intel® DCI) device cannot be shown in device manger of Windows* OS (or the output of lsusb in generic Linux* OS), which is illustrated by the green flow in the diagram:

Launch System Configuration Checker on the Target

UEFI BIOS usually has an option to boot to EFI shell and copy the <install-dir>\system_debugger\<version>\samples\bin\SystemConfigurationChecker.efi file to any thumb drive that is formatted in FAT filesystem. If the UEFI BIOS does not have EFI shell boot option, you can prepare an empty USB thumb drive and format it with GPT partition. The following output shows an SCC example report, which contains diagnostics results and suggested ways of fixing issues:

> SystemConfigurationChecker.efi

System Configuration Checker 1.0
Found the matched configurations for system checking
Current Status:
    Phase-1: Platform Debug Consent checking
        Platform Debug Enable bit is set,
        Intel® DCI is enabled as USB2/3 DbC,
        then a debug connection is not established.
    Phase-2: CPU Run-Control Enabling checking
        Run-Control is enabled
    Phase-3: Intel® Processor Trace Enabling checking
        Intel® Processor Trace is disabled
    Phase-4: Crash Log configuration checking
        Three Strike is disabled
Next Steps:
    Platform is configured for system debugging using Intel® DCI,
    but Intel® DCI connection is not established. Check USB DbC or OOB connection.

Please share this diagnostic output with Intel when you report any issues related to debug connection.