[ On Monday, October 30, 2000 at 16:49:20 (-0500), Todd Vierling wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: ld.elf_so.core 
>
> On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> 
> : > > i went and executed /usr/libexec/ld.elf_so and it core
> : > > dump on me. is that normal? here is the gdb output:
> : > 
> : > ld.elf_so is the run-time linker - you shouldn't be starting it by
> : > hand...  I think this is a case of "don't do that".
> : 
> : Nothing should ever core dump -- regardless of how it's invoked!
> 
> Try running /boot sometime.

/boot should not have any executable flag set in its permissions.  It
should never be executed (and thus should not be executable) in a
properly configured system -- just as any random hunk of data should
never be executed.  It is not a unix format binary even though it might
contain machine code which can be executed in some other environment.

> Some object files are a very special case; the dynamic linker is one of
> them.  ld.elf_so expects a very specific set of information in certain
> registers (machine dependent) in order to bootstrap its target program.

So, why's it so difficult for it to do a little bit of error checking?

Nothing that's expected to be run as an executable program should ever
core dump unexpectedly, regardless of how it is (mis)invoked.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
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