Vulnerability analysis with gdbserver

Here's my workflow when I'm doing vulnerability analysis under debugger. Thanks to gdbserver I can debug on target machine (OS image launched in Virtualbox) and use gvim and pyclewn just by dropping statically compiled gdbserver into target machine.

ON WORKING MACHINE:

# in case you don't already have it
 apt-get install dpkg-dev

# get source of your gdb (includes gdbserver)
 apt-get source gdb

# compile gdbserver
 cd gdb-x.y/gdb/gdbserver/
 LDFLAGS=-static ./configure
 make

# sent it to target machine (for example:)
 scp ./gdbserver root@192.168.x.y:

ON TARGET MACHINE:

# compile your binary (exim4 for me)
 cd exim-4.69/
 cp src/EDITME Local/Makefile
 vi Local/Makefile
    set/modify BIN_DIRECTORY
    set/modify CONFIGURE_FILE
    set EXIM_USER
    set EXIM_GROUP
    comment out EXIM_MONITOR
    add: CFLAGS += -g somewhere in the file
 make
 make install

ON WORKING MACHINE:

# copy binary from target machine to your working machine:
 cd exim-4.69/src
 scp 192.168.x.y:/usr/local/exim/bin/exim-4.69-2 ./

ON TARGET MACHINE:

# start gdbserver:
 ./gdbserver :3332 /usr/local/exim/bin/exim-4.69-2 -d -bd -oX 3333

 OR attach to existing process:

 ./gdbserver :3332 --attach  

ON WORKING MACHINE:

 cd exim-4.69/src
 gdb exim-4.69-2
     target remote 192.168.x.y:3332
     break main
     continue

 OR you could do it from gvim + pyclewn:

 cd exim-4.69/src
 pyclewn
     e exim.c
     Cmapkeys
     Cfile exim-4.69-2
     Ctarget remote 192.168.x.y:3332
     Cbreak main
     Ccontinue