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ELF Crimes: Program Interpreter Fun

67 points| nytpu | 2 months ago |nytpu.com

14 comments

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saagarjha|2 months ago

> But after getting the linked script setup working, even though it seemed like it should've been enough, it absolutely refused to work. It would only give me an opaque exec format error error, no matter how many different shotgun debugging things I tried, I ended up spending something like six hours over the course of two days on it with no real progress.

I think I would have eventually just loaded up a debugger and binary searched the codebase until I found the spot returning the error.

nytpu|2 months ago

Because attaching a debugger to the Linux Kernel is so convenient and easy :P

But yeah, I was just being lazy and dumb. I solved it within ten minutes of someone saying "why don't you just go through the binfmt_elf code?" A debugger would've probably been more tedious than reading the relevant code directly, but would've been just as effective.

delaminator|2 months ago

It’s a terrible shame Linux is still a 1970s program.

Plan 9’s debugger Acid can attach to a running kernel on a remote machine and debug it.

dzdt|2 months ago

"It just radiates jank" ... that line resonates with me, but is sonehow a bit attractive. Like this is how things might be done in some alternative grittier universe. Like this is how Kaylee would make data formats execute on the Firefly. Its steampunk programming.