Tagged Questions

3
votes
1answer
142 views

Which parts of an ELF executable get loaded into memory, and where?

What I already know: An ELF executable has a number of sections, obviously the .text and .data sections get loaded into memory as these are the main parts of the program. But for a program to work, ...
5
votes
1answer
202 views

Unix/Linux Loader Process

Can anyone tell me which process of the operating system loads the ELF(Executable and Linking format) file into RAM ?
18
votes
1answer
610 views

Oldest binary working on Linux?

In a discussion on backwards-compatibility in Linux kernel and GUI ABIs, Alan Cox notes that "my 3.6rc kernel will still run a Rogue binary built in 1992. X is back compatible to apps far older than ...
3
votes
1answer
265 views

Rationale for making user space text segment start at 0x8048000

I read somewhere that (at least since Linux v. 2.6) all user-space code is placed at load address 0x8048000 in the virtual memory address space. My own observations confirm this. I have done a cat ...
2
votes
2answers
87 views

Different formats of object files in Linux

I was wondering what are some formats of object files in Linux? There are two types of object files that I know: executable, which has ELF format object files that are generated by gcc after ...
2
votes
1answer
285 views

How does prelink work

I was wondering how prelinking works. If I prelink my whole system and than delete glibc, will the system 'get up' after restart?
12
votes
1answer
398 views

Why does the file command say that ELF binaries are for Linux 2.6.9?

Whenever I run file on an ELF binary I get this output: [jonescb@localhost ~]$ file a.out a.out: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.6.9, dynamically linked ...
8
votes
5answers
3k views

Can we get compiler information from an elf binary?

Is there some chance to know how a binary was built, under Linux? (and or other Unix) Compiler, version, time, flags etc... I looked at readelf and couldn't find much, but there might be other ways ...