DDMS

Android ships with a debugging tool called the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS), which provides port-forwarding services, screen capture on the device, thread and heap information on the device, logcat, process, and radio state information, incoming call and SMS spoofing, location data spoofing, and more. This page provides a modest discussion of DDMS features; it is not an exhaustive exploration of all the features and capabilities.

Running DDMS

DDMS is integrated into Eclipse and is also shipped in thetools/ directory of the SDK. DDMS works with both the emulator and a connected device. If both are connected and running simultaneously, DDMS defaults to the emulator.

• From Eclipse: Click Window > Open Perspective > Other... > DDMS.
• From the command line: Type ddms (or ./ddms on Mac/Linux) from the tools/ directory.

How DDMS Interacts with a Debugger

On Android, every application runs in its own process, each of which runs in its own virtual machine (VM). Each VM exposes a unique port that a debugger can attach to.

When DDMS starts, it connects to adb. When a device is connected, a VM monitoring service is created between adb and DDMS, which notifies DDMS when a VM on the device is started or terminated. Once a VM is running, DDMS retrieves the the VM's process ID (pid), via adb, and opens a connection to the VM's debugger, through the adb daemon (adbd) on the device. DDMS can now talk to the VM using a custom wire protocol.

DDMS assigns a debugging port to each VM on the device. Typically, DDMS assigns port 8600 for the first debuggable VM, the next on 8601, and so on. When a debugger connects to one of these ports, all traffic is forwarded to the debugger from the associated VM. You can only attach a single debugger to a single port, but DDMS can handle multiple, attached debuggers.

By default, DDMS also listens on another debugging port, the DDMS "base port" (8700, by default). The base port is a port forwarder, which can accept VM traffic from any debugging port and forward it to the debugger on port 8700. This allows you to attach one debugger to port 8700, and debug all the VMs on a device. The traffic that is forwarded is determined by the currently selected process in the DDMS Devices view.

The following screenshot shows a typical DDMS screen in Eclipse. If you are starting DDMS from the command line, the screen is slightly different, but much of the functionality is identical. Notice that the highlighted process,com.android.email, that is running in the emulator has the debugging port 8700 assigned to it as well as 8606. This signifies that DDMS is currently forwarding port 8606 to the static debugging port of 8700.