A no_std Rust binary

👋 This page was last updated ~5 years ago. Just so you know.

In Part 11, we spent some time clarifying mechanisms we had previously glossed over: how variables and functions from other ELF objects were accessed at runtime.

We saw that doing so "proper" required the cooperation of the compiler, the assembler, the linker, and the dynamic loader. We also learned that the mechanism for functions was actually quite complicated! And sorta clever!

And finally, we ignored all the cleverness and "made things work" with a three-line change, adding support for both GlobDat and JumpSlot relocations.

We're not done with relocations yet, of course - but I think we've earned ourselves a little break. There's plenty of other things we've been ignoring so far!

For example... how are command-line arguments passed to an executable?

Cool bear's hot tip

Ooh, ooh, that's easy!

The main() function gets an int argc argument, and a char **argv argument!

Ah, of course cool bear. One little problem though... we have no main.

C code
// in `samples/chimera/chimera.c`

void _start(void) {
    // (cut)
}

Remember, since we're staying away from libc, we have to come up with our own entry point - named _start by convention. It takes no arguments, and returns nothing - in fact, it never returns.

And it was the same thing in assembly:

x86 assembly
; in `samples/hello-dl.asm`

        global _start
        extern msg

        section .text

_start:
        mov rdi, 1      ; stdout fd
        mov rsi, msg
        mov rdx, 38     ; 37 chars + newline
        mov rax, 1      ; write syscall
        syscall

        xor rdi, rdi    ; return code 0
        mov rax, 60     ; exit syscall
        syscall

...how in the world do you get a program's command-line arguments in assembly?

Cool bear's hot tip

I uhh.. yeah. Good point.

Well, let's find that out, shall we? We've been dealing with ELF long enough to know where to look...

Let's take elk itself as an example. It's a pretty standard Rust binary.

First let's find its entry point:

Shell session
$ readelf -h ./target/debug/elk | grep Entry
  Entry point address:               0x10080

Easy enough. Is it a named symbol?

Shell session
$ nm ./target/debug/elk | grep 10080
0000000000010080 T _start

Yeah! Pretty standard stuff. This is going to be an easy article, I can feel it.

Cool bear's hot tip

looks at article's title

If you say so...

Let's disassemble it:

x86 assembly
$ objdump --disassemble=_start ./target/debug/elk
; (cut)

0000000000010080 <_start>:
   10080:       f3 0f 1e fa             endbr64
   10084:       31 ed                   xor    ebp,ebp
   10086:       49 89 d1                mov    r9,rdx
   10089:       5e                      pop    rsi
   1008a:       48 89 e2                mov    rdx,rsp
   1008d:       48 83 e4 f0             and    rsp,0xfffffffffffffff0
   10091:       50                      push   rax
   10092:       54                      push   rsp
   10093:       4c 8d 05 76 5d 0e 00    lea    r8,[rip+0xe5d76]        # f5e10 <__libc_csu_fini>
   1009a:       48 8d 0d ff 5c 0e 00    lea    rcx,[rip+0xe5cff]        # f5da0 <__libc_csu_init>
   100a1:       48 8d 3d 88 3f 01 00    lea    rdi,[rip+0x13f88]        # 24030 <main>
   100a8:       ff 15 1a 7e 12 00       call   QWORD PTR [rip+0x127e1a]        # 137ec8 <__libc_start_main@GLIBC_2.2.5>
   100ae:       f4                      hlt

Well well well, what do we have here?

We've seen endbr64 before - aaaaaall the way back in Part 3 - it just means "this is a valid jump target".

So far, so good.

To make sense of the rest, we need to notice that the whole thing ends with a call to __libc_start_main@GLIBC_2.2.5 - that's the juicy bit.

Cool bear's hot tip

Note that the very next instruction is hlt - halt and catch fire. We really don't expect to return from _start.

So, what arguments does __libc_start_main take?

The Linux Standard Base Specification 5.0 tells us what it should take. I've formatted it for readability:

C code
int __libc_start_main(int (*main)(int, char**, char**),
                      int argc,
                      char** ubp_av,
                      void (*init)(void),
                      void (*fini)(void),
                      void (*rtld_fini)(void),
                      void(*stack_end));

So, let's see... if we map those to the calling convention for the System V AMD64 ABI, for "INTEGER" class arguments (works for both int arguments and pointers), this is what our registers and stack look like right before calling __libc_start_main:

Cool bear's hot tip

Throughout this whole article, whenever we write foo %rax, we mean "the register named rax".

It's a bit confusing, because in GDB, you can print registers with the syntax $rax, and when looking at disassembly in Intel syntax, registers are just written rax.

Then again, x86 register names are just plain confusing to begin with.

My advice? Just bathe in it. Take it all in. Bask in the glorious mess that is x86 and come out; not only stronger, but wiser too.

Let's go back to the beginning of _start and walk through it, instruction by instruction:

x86 assembly
    xor    ebp,ebp

%rbp is the frame pointer on AMD64. To be quite honest, I'm not sure why it's being cleared here - in my test runs, it appears to already be zero by that point.

x86 assembly
    mov    r9,rdx

%r9 corresponds to the rtld_fini argument - it's a finalizer function from the runtime loader (rtld), which is passed to _start through the %rdx register.

x86 assembly
    pop    rsi

This pops a 64-bit value off the stack and stores it in %rsi - so that's where argc comes from!

After all, there weren't that many possibilities: either argc and argv were passed via registers, or via the stack.

In a way, an ELF executable is "just a function", with a funny calling convention.

x86 assembly
    mov    rdx,rsp

This sets the ubp_av argument to the current stack pointer.

It's more or less argv, more on that later.

x86 assembly
    and    rsp,0xfffffffffffffff0

Simon System V AMD64 ABI says: the stack must be 16-byte-aligned before calling a function. That's exactly what this instruction does.

x86 assembly
    push   rax

This one was a riddle... what the hell is in %rax at that point (0x1c, or so GDB tells me), and why is it pushed on the stack?? Is it some sort of canary?

Turns out - and I'm quoting here - that, nope:

Push garbage because we push 8 more bytes.

glibc source code

So this push is just there to maintain 16-byte alignment because another 8 bytes are pushed before calling __libc_start_main.

x86 assembly
    push   rsp

This sets up stack_end. I'm assuming glibc uses that to set up some sort of stack smashing protection. An assumption that would be very easy to verify for anyone who, unlike me, is willing to dive back in glibc's source code at this point in time.

x86 assembly
    lea    r8,[rip+0xf7b26]        # 106c90 <__libc_csu_fini>
    lea    rcx,[rip+0xf7aaf]        # 106c20 <__libc_csu_init>
    lea    rdi,[rip+0x79df8]        # 88f70 <main>

This sets up the remaining arguments: main, init, fini.

x86 assembly
    call   QWORD PTR [rip+0x13bae2]        # 14ac60 <__libc_start_main@GLIBC_2.2.5>
    hlt

With all arguments set up and the stack 16-byte-aligned, it finally calls __libc_start_main.

So, the mystery is solved: the way command-line arguments (and environment variables) are passed to executables is: via the stack.

And what a stack it is:

Well, that sounds easy enough! Let's make a program that prints its arguments without using libc at all.

I don't feel like writing assembly at all, though. And I don't feel like writing C... ever, really?

So let's go with rust.

We'll call this sample echidna:

Shell session
$ cd samples/
$ cargo new echidna

Now, normally, Rust binaries depend on libstd, which provides niceties like, you know, data structures, strings, file APIs, many many things in fact. Including a memory allocator. This'll be fun.

Cool bear's hot tip

Ohhhhhhhhhh boy here we go.

But where we're going, we don't want libstd - because it relies on libc. We want its minimal counterpart, libcore.

For that - and a lot of other crimes we're about to commit - we're going to need rust nightly.

Luckily, we can simply add a toolchain file to make sure it's used to compile echidna. In samples/echidna/rust-toolchain, let's put:

TOML markup
[toolchain]
channel = "nightly"
components = [ "rustfmt", "clippy" ]
targets = [ "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu" ]

And let's get started! I'm being told to "opt into no_std" (really, opt out of libstd), you need the crate-level no_std attribute:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![no_std]

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}

Nice!

Shell session
$ cargo b

cargo b
   Compiling echidna v0.1.0 (/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna)
error: cannot find macro `println` in this scope
 --> src/main.rs:4:5
  |
4 |     println!("Hello, world!");
  |     ^^^^^^^

error: `#[panic_handler]` function required, but not found

error: language item required, but not found: `eh_personality`

error: aborting due to 3 previous errors

error: could not compile `echidna`.

To learn more, run the command again with --verbose.

Ah. We don't have println. Okay, we just won't do anything then!

We also need to add an eh_personality and a panic_handler - we'll keep it simple for now.

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![no_std]

fn main() {}

#[lang = "eh_personality"]
fn eh_personality() {}

#[panic_handler]
fn panic(_info: &core::panic::PanicInfo) -> ! {
    loop {}
}
Shell session
$ cargo b
   Compiling echidna v0.1.0 (/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna)
error[E0658]: language items are subject to change
 --> src/main.rs:5:1
  |
5 | #[lang = "eh_personality"]
  | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  |
  = help: add `#![feature(lang_items)]` to the crate attributes to enable

Ohhh here we go, opting into unstable features. Let's add it to the top of main.rs and try again:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![feature(lang_items)]
// omitted: rest of file
Shell session
$ cargo b
   Compiling echidna v0.1.0 (/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna)
error: requires `start` lang_item

Mhh. I think we'll make our own entry point. With tea, and scones. That's right, british friends, I gave tea a try. It's okay with milk and lemon.

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![no_main]
// omitted: rest of file
Shell session
$ cargo b
   Compiling echidna v0.1.0 (/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna)
warning: function is never used: `main`
 --> src/main.rs:5:4
  |
5 | fn main() {}
  |    ^^^^
  |
  = note: `#[warn(dead_code)]` on by default

error: linking with `cc` failed: exit code: 1
  |
  = note: "cc" "-Wl,--as-needed" "-Wl,-z,noexecstack" "-m64" "-Wl,--eh-frame-hdr" "-L" "/home/amos/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib" "/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/debug/deps/echidna-c61abc523ab4bb6d.4yduu4srhziqnaxv.rcgu.o" "-o" "/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/debug/deps/echidna-c61abc523ab4bb6d" "-Wl,--gc-sections" "-pie" "-Wl,-zrelro" "-Wl,-znow" "-nodefaultlibs" "-L" "/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/debug/deps" "-L" "/home/amos/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib" "-Wl,-Bstatic" "/home/amos/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/librustc_std_workspace_core-90996f4879673567.rlib" "/home/amos/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/libcore-9ea09a899c3eda46.rlib" "/home/amos/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/libcompiler_builtins-ea377e9224b11a8a.rlib" "-Wl,-Bdynamic"
  = note: /usr/sbin/ld: /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/10.2.0/../../../../lib/Scrt1.o: in function `_start':
          /usr/src/debug/glibc-2.32/csu/../sysdeps/x86_64/start.S:101: undefined reference to `__libc_csu_fini'
          /usr/sbin/ld: /usr/src/debug/glibc-2.32/csu/../sysdeps/x86_64/start.S:102: undefined reference to `__libc_csu_init'
          /usr/sbin/ld: /usr/src/debug/glibc-2.32/csu/../sysdeps/x86_64/start.S:104: undefined reference to `main'
          /usr/sbin/ld: /usr/src/debug/glibc-2.32/csu/../sysdeps/x86_64/start.S:120: undefined reference to `__libc_start_main'
          collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

Ha! An error from GNU ld! Long time no see, friend.

Those symbols seem very familiar. They're part of the _start prelude we've just analyzed. That means Rust still attempts to pull in part of libc, even in a no_std environment.

That won't do, of course.

There's four ways to work around this:

The first way is to wait for this PR to land, but we don't have that kind of time.

The second way is to export RUSTFLAGS:

Shell session
$ export RUSTFLAGS="-C link-arg=-nostartfiles"

This is a tad annoying, because it'll affect all our dependencies, even build scripts - which might break other crates. And we'd have to remember to set it anytime we want to build echidna.

The third way is to create a .cargo/config file:

TOML markup
# samples/echidna/.cargo/config

[target.'cfg(target_os = "linux")']
rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-nostartfiles"]

This is equivalent to the second way, except we don't have to remember to set it. But it'd still break other crates.

The fourth way is to.. add a build script to pass a linker argument.

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/build.rs`

fn main() {
    // don't link with stdlib
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-arg-bin=echidna=-nostartfiles");
}
Cool bear's hot tip

This used to be accessible via a link_args feature, but it was removed, see this discussion.

Thanks to ralismark on GitHub for noting that!

Shell session
$ cargo b
   Compiling echidna v0.1.0 (/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna)
warning: function is never used: `main`
 --> src/main.rs:5:4
  |
5 | fn main() {}
  |    ^^^^
  |
  = note: `#[warn(dead_code)]` on by default

    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.09s

Hey, it built!

Does it run?

Shell session
$ ./target/debug/echidna
[1]    78911 segmentation fault (core dumped)  ./target/debug/echidna

Absolutely not. Gotta start somewhere!

On the plus side, it's positively tiny - and that's a debug build!

Shell session
$ ls -lhA ./target/debug/echidna
-rwxr-xr-x 2 amos amos 14K Jan 31 13:19 ./target/debug/echidna
Cool bear's hot tip

In release mode, and after stripping debug symbols, it's down to 8.8K!

It still crashes, but you know. Can't have everything.

So let's start at the beginning! What's the entry point for our freshly-built binary?

Shell session
$ readelf -h ./target/debug/echidna | grep Entry
  Entry point address:               0x0

Ah, well, there's your problem!

We didn't even see the warning from GNU ld. Sneaky sneaky cargo.

I guess just the usual - rename main to _start?

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![no_std]
#![no_main]
#![feature(lang_items)]

fn _start() {}

// etc.
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ readelf -h ./target/debug/echidna | grep Entry
  Entry point address:               0x0

No dice. Make it pub?

Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ readelf -h ./target/debug/echidna | grep Entry
  Entry point address:               0x0

Still the same.

Mhhhhh.

Cool bear's hot tip

Psst!

Much like C++, Rust mangles symbol names by default.

Ah! That'll do it.

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![no_std]
#![no_main]
#![feature(lang_items)]

#[no_mangle]
pub fn _start() {}
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ readelf -h ./target/debug/echidna | grep Entry
  Entry point address:               0x1000

Wonderful!

Of course, it still crashes. But we do have an entry point now.

You know the drill by now - how do we make syscalls when we don't have a standard library? With inline assembly!

RFC 2873 finally gave Rust an inline assembly syntax that isn't just LLVM inline assembly with glasses and a mustache.

We'll put our syscall wrappers in a support module:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

use core::arch::asm;

// reminder: `!` is the `never` type - this indicates
// that `exit` never returns.
pub unsafe fn exit(code: i32) -> ! {
    let syscall_number: u64 = 60;
    asm!(
        "syscall",
        in("rax") syscall_number,
        in("rdi") code,
        options(noreturn)
    )
}
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![no_std]
#![no_main]
#![feature(lang_items)]

mod support;
use support::*;

#[no_mangle]
// new: now unsafe!
pub unsafe fn _start() {
    exit(0);
}

// omitted: eh_personality, panic_handler, etc.
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/echidna
$ echo $?
0

Hurray!

So, what can we do now that we have a no_std rust program? What were we trying do to again? Oh right, print our arguments.

Well... they're on the stack. But how are we going to access them?

The minute we declare local variables in _start, it's game over - the function prelude will reserve space for them, and we'll have lost the initial value of %rsp forever.

So what are we to do? Use more inline assembly, of course!

We'll make another function that takes a single argument: the address of the "top of the stack" (which always appears at the bottom of our diagrams, since the stack grows down for us).

Let's go:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#![feature(naked_functions)]

#[no_mangle]
#[naked]
// new: now extern "C"
pub unsafe extern "C" fn _start() {
    asm!("mov rdi, rsp", "call main", options(noreturn))
}

#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    exit(argc as _);
}

As usual, we're using exit as our communication channel with the outside world, since it's the easiest thing to do.

Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/echidna; echo $?
1
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo; echo $?
2
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo bar; echo $?
3
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo bar baz; echo $?
4

But we can do better.

Rust is comfy.

Let's make ourselves a comfy no_std nest and then hibernate in it.

We're going to need... a wrapper for the write syscall, and an strlen implementation at the very least:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

pub const STDOUT_FILENO: u32 = 1;

pub unsafe fn write(fd: u32, buf: *const u8, count: usize) {
    let syscall_number: u64 = 1;
    asm!(
        "syscall",
        in("rax") syscall_number,
        in("rdi") fd,
        in("rsi") buf,
        in("rdx") count,
        // Linux syscalls don't touch the stack at all, so
        // we don't care about its alignment
        options(nostack)
    );
}

pub unsafe fn strlen(mut s: *const u8) -> usize {
    let mut count = 0;
    while *s != b'\0' {
        count += 1;
        s = s.add(1);
    }
    count
}

And with those, we can start printing arguments one by one:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    let argv = stack_top.add(8) as *const *const u8;

    use core::slice::from_raw_parts as mkslice;
    let args = mkslice(argv, argc as usize);

    for &arg in args {
        write(STDOUT_FILENO, arg, strlen(arg));
    }

    exit(argc as _);
}
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo bar baz; echo $?
./target/debug/echidnafoobarbaz4

Well... it does print them.

..but first - this is our first no_std program ever, it links to nothing:

Shell session
$ ldd ./target/debug/echidna
        statically linked

I'd like to know if it builds and runs in release mode (ie. with optimizations).

Shell session
$ cargo b --release
$
./target/release/echidna[1]    141955 segmentation fault (core dumped)  ./target/rele
ase/echidna

Mhhh no dice.

The heck is happening?

It's possible to guess what's going wrong just by this picture. And I'm going to give you a chance to guess! To avoid spoilers, I'll let cool bear tell you about another bug in echidna I wasn't sure I was even going to mention.

Cool bear's hot tip

Story time!

When amos was prototyping echidna, everything worked fine... for a while. Then he tried it in release mode, and all hell broke loose. The GDB session above shows one legitimate problem that was relatively easy to fix, but then there was another problem.

At that point in the code, there was a struct with two u64 fields, like so:

Rust code
struct S {
    a: u64,
    b: u64,
}

And it was dereferenced, moved around and the like. It being a 128-bit wide type, LLVM thought it'd be smart and use the xmm0 register, so it could be moved in one fell swoop.

But it was generating the movdqa instruction, like so:

x86 assembly
movdqa XMMWORD PTR [rsp],xmm0

...but by that point, %rsp wasn't 16-byte-aligned, only 8-byte-aligned. And the a in movdqa stands for "aligned". So it segfaulted. (That's a segfault you don't see often!).

So amos went fishing with GDB. %rsp was 16-byte-aligned at the beginning of _start (as expected), it was 16-byte-aligned at the beginning of main... but it wasn't aligned right before the movdqa.

As it turns out, amos had misunderstood the System V AMD64 ABI.

_start was doing that:

x86 assembly
_start:
    mov rsi, rsp
    jmp main

...which is wrong. You see, main expects to be called, not just jumped to. And call pushes the address to return to onto the stack.

So function prologues (generated by LLVM for every Rust function) actually expect %rsp to be unaligned, and compensate when allocating local storage: they reserve 8+16*n bytes, which re-aligns %rsp.

TL;DR - even if our main is never supposed to return, we should call it.

Did you figure out the problem?

In debug builds, naive code is generated, and the stack is used for everything, including all local variables, temporaries, etc:

x86 assembly
$ objdump --disassemble=main ./target/debug/echidna | head -25

./target/debug/echidna:     file format elf64-x86-64


Disassembly of section .text:

00000000000014a0 <main>:
    14a0:       48 81 ec 98 00 00 00    sub    rsp,0x98
    14a7:       48 89 7c 24 58          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x58],rdi
    14ac:       48 8b 07                mov    rax,QWORD PTR [rdi]
    14af:       48 89 44 24 60          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x60],rax
    14b4:       be 08 00 00 00          mov    esi,0x8
    14b9:       48 89 44 24 38          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x38],rax
    14be:       e8 6d fc ff ff          call   1130 <_ZN4core3ptr9const_ptr33_$LT$impl$u20$$BP$const$u20$T$GT$3add17h3943ea7b27872d0aE>
    14c3:       48 89 44 24 30          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x30],rax
    14c8:       48 8b 44 24 30          mov    rax,QWORD PTR [rsp+0x30]
    14cd:       48 89 44 24 68          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x68],rax
    14d2:       48 89 c7                mov    rdi,rax
    14d5:       48 8b 74 24 38          mov    rsi,QWORD PTR [rsp+0x38]
    14da:       e8 21 fd ff ff          call   1200 <_ZN4core5slice3raw14from_raw_parts17h9d473387ae456536E>
    14df:       48 89 44 24 70          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x70],rax
    14e4:       48 89 54 24 78          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x78],rdx
    14e9:       48 89 44 24 28          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x28],rax
    14ee:       48 89 54 24 20          mov    QWORD PTR [rsp+0x20],rdx
    14f3:       48 8b 7c 24 28          mov    rdi,QWORD PTR [rsp+0x28]

...but in release mode, LLVM tries very hard to use registers instead:

x86 assembly
$ objdump --disassemble=main ./target/release/echidna | head -25

./target/release/echidna:     file format elf64-x86-64


Disassembly of section .text:

0000000000001010 <main>:
    1010:       48 83 ec 08             sub    rsp,0x8
    1014:       4c 8b 07                mov    r8,QWORD PTR [rdi]
    1017:       4a 8d 04 c5 00 00 00    lea    rax,[r8*8+0x0]
    101e:       00
    101f:       48 85 c0                test   rax,rax
    1022:       74 48                   je     106c <main+0x5c>
    1024:       48 89 f9                mov    rcx,rdi
    1027:       4e 8d 0c c7             lea    r9,[rdi+r8*8]
    102b:       49 83 c1 08             add    r9,0x8
    102f:       48 83 c1 08             add    rcx,0x8
    1033:       bf 01 00 00 00          mov    edi,0x1
    1038:       48 8b 31                mov    rsi,QWORD PTR [rcx]
    103b:       48 83 c1 08             add    rcx,0x8
    103f:       80 3e 00                cmp    BYTE PTR [rsi],0x0
    1042:       0f 85 08 00 00 00       jne    1050 <main+0x40>
    1048:       31 d2                   xor    edx,edx
    104a:       e9 11 00 00 00          jmp    1060 <main+0x50>
    104f:       90                      nop

And we've been writing inline assembly code... that uses registers... and we haven't told LLVM which registers we were using exactly.

Rust code
pub unsafe fn write(fd: u32, buf: *const u8, count: usize) {
    let syscall_number: u64 = 1;
    asm!(
        "syscall",
        in("rax") syscall_number,
        in("rdi") fd,
        in("rsi") buf,
        in("rdx") count,
        options(nostack)
    );
}

...I mean, sure, we've told it about our inputs: %rdi, %rsi, and %rdx, but we neglected to mention that syscalls return their value in %rax, and that they don't preserve the values of %rcx and %r11.

We could get away with it in debug mode, but not in release "registers are a scarce resource, spill me baby" mode.

In that mode, LLVM uses %rcx for a local variable, which gets silently corrupted, and then all hell breaks loose:

x86 assembly
    ;                                                         👇 woops!
    1038:       48 8b 31                mov    rsi,QWORD PTR [rcx]
    103b:       48 83 c1 08             add    rcx,0x8
    103f:       80 3e 00                cmp    BYTE PTR [rsi],0x0
    1042:       0f 85 08 00 00 00       jne    1050 <main+0x40>

So, let's specify our "clobbers" (which registers aren't preserved), for both our syscall wrappers.

Cool bear's hot tip

Wait... both of them? Doesn't exit never return?

Ah, right! taps head Don't need to specify clobbers if your asm block never returns!

Just for write then:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

pub unsafe fn write(fd: u32, buf: *const u8, count: usize) {
    let syscall_number: u64 = 1;
    asm!(
        "syscall",
        // was `in("rax")`
        inout("rax") syscall_number => _, // we don't check the return value
        in("rdi") fd,
        in("rsi") buf,
        in("rdx") count,
        // those are both new:
        lateout("rcx") _, lateout("r11") _,
        options(nostack)
    );
}

..and just like that, it works in release mode:

Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/release/echidna foo bar baz; echo $?
./target/release/echidnafoobarbaz4

Back to the task at hand: calling the write wrapper by hand isn't very... handy.

You know what would be cool? Printing u8 slices!

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

pub fn print(s: &[u8]) {
    unsafe {
        write(STDOUT_FILENO, s.as_ptr(), s.len());
    }
}

pub fn println(s: &[u8]) {
    print(s);
    print(b"\n");
}
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    let argv = stack_top.add(8) as *const *const u8;

    use core::slice::from_raw_parts as mkslice;
    let args = mkslice(argv, argc as usize);

    for &arg in args {
        let arg = mkslice(arg, strlen(arg));
        println(arg);
    }

    exit(argc as _);
}
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo bar baz; echo $?
./target/debug/echidna
foo
bar
baz
4

Better!

Let's go overkill a little bit - just because we can.

How about printing numbers as well?

Now, before you say anything, I know what you're thinking; "Amos! Just use core::fmt or something!"

Yeah well. That's not nearly as fun.

Onwards:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

pub fn print_str(s: &[u8]) {
    unsafe {
        write(STDOUT_FILENO, s.as_ptr(), s.len());
    }
}

pub fn print_num(n: usize) {
    if n > 9 {
        print_num(n / 10);
    }
    let c = b'0' + (n % 10) as u8;
    print_str(&[c]);
}

pub enum PrintArg<'a> {
    String(&'a [u8]),
    Number(usize),
}

pub fn print(args: &[PrintArg]) {
    for arg in args {
        match arg {
            PrintArg::String(s) => print_str(s),
            PrintArg::Number(n) => print_num(*n),
        }
    }
}
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    let argv = stack_top.add(8) as *const *const u8;

    use core::slice::from_raw_parts as mkslice;
    let args = mkslice(argv, argc as usize);

    print(&[
        PrintArg::String(b"received "),
        PrintArg::Number(argc as usize),
        PrintArg::String(b" arguments:\n"),
    ]);

    for &arg in args {
        let arg = mkslice(arg, strlen(arg));
        print(&[
            PrintArg::String(b" - "),
            PrintArg::String(arg),
            PrintArg::String(b"\n"),
        ])
    }

    exit(0);
}
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo bar baz
received 4 arguments:
 - ./target/debug/echidna
 - foo
 - bar
 - baz

Very nice! Very, very nice. We still get to use all the nice Rust things like iterators, for..in loops, slices, and enums. It's all stack-allocated, so there's no problem!

But our print is kinda cumbersome to use.

Maybe implementing From will alleviate the problem to some extent?

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

impl<'a> From<usize> for PrintArg<'a> {
    fn from(v: usize) -> Self {
        PrintArg::Number(v)
    }
}

impl<'a> From<&'a [u8]> for PrintArg<'a> {
    fn from(v: &'a [u8]) -> Self {
        PrintArg::String(v)
    }
}
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    let argv = stack_top.add(8) as *const *const u8;

    use core::slice::from_raw_parts as mkslice;
    let args = mkslice(argv, argc as usize);

    print(&[
        b"received ".into(),
        (argc as usize).into(),
        b" arguments:\n".into(),
    ]);

    for &arg in args {
        let arg = mkslice(arg, strlen(arg));
        print(&[b" - ".into(), arg.into(), b"\n".into()])
    }

    exit(0);
}
Shell session
$  cargo b -q
error[E0277]: the trait bound `support::PrintArg<'_>: core::convert::From<&[u8; 9]>` is not satisfied
  --> src/main.rs:29:22
   |
29 |         b"received ".into(),
   |                      ^^^^ the trait `core::convert::From<&[u8; 9]>` is not implemented for `support::PrintArg<'_>`
   |
   = help: the following implementations were found:
             <support::PrintArg<'a> as core::convert::From<&'a [u8]>>
             <support::PrintArg<'a> as core::convert::From<usize>>
   = note: required because of the requirements on the impl of `core::convert::Into<support::PrintArg<'_>>` for `&[u8; 9]`

error[E0277]: the trait bound `support::PrintArg<'_>: core::convert::From<&[u8; 12]>` is not satisfied
  --> src/main.rs:31:26
   |
31 |         b" arguments:\n".into(),
   |                          ^^^^ the trait `core::convert::From<&[u8; 12]>` is not implemented for `support::PrintArg<'_>`

(cut)

Oh. The type of b"blah" isn't &[u8], it's [u8; N] - in other words, it's not a slice, it's a fixed-size array.

Well... we're on nightly... nightly has const generics... I'm sure we can work something out...

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

impl<'a, const N: usize> From<&'a [u8; N]> for PrintArg<'a> {
    fn from(v: &'a [u8; N]) -> Self {
        PrintArg::String(v.as_ref())
    }
}
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

// new:
#![feature(const_generics)]
#![allow(incomplete_features)]

// the rest is identical
Shell session
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/echidna foo bar baz
received 4 arguments:
 - ./target/debug/echidna
 - foo
 - bar
 - baz

That's kind of amazing. I had never used const generics before, seems like they do just what it says on the tin.

...but I still don't love those callsites:

Rust code
  print(&[
      b"received ".into(),
      (argc as usize).into(),
      b" arguments:\n".into(),
  ]);

It's time for... yes? You, in the back, with a mustache? Mackerel? Oh, macros? Yes, yes it is.

Cool bear's hot tip

I mean, either. Or both. Both is good.

readjusts mustache

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

#[macro_export]
macro_rules! print {
    ($($arg:expr),+) => {
        print(&[
            $($arg.into()),+
        ])
    };
}

#[macro_export]
macro_rules! println {
    ($($arg:expr),+) => {
        print!($($arg),+,b"\n");
    };
}
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    let argv = stack_top.add(8) as *const *const u8;

    use core::slice::from_raw_parts as mkslice;
    let args = mkslice(argv, argc as usize);

    println!(b"received ", argc as usize, b" arguments:");

    for &arg in args {
        let arg = mkslice(arg, strlen(arg));
        println!(b" - ", arg);
    }

    exit(0);
}

Now that is comfy. I feel right at home.

Sure, our println! is a little different but hey - it's much better than what we had before!

Let's keep going and print (some) environment variables, along with auxiliary vectors.

Before we go further, we have to pull in one dependency. Although we've managed to avoid them so far, some methods in libcore depend on builtin functions like "memcpy" and "memcmp".

The slice::starts_with method requires those, for example.

We have two options there - either keep avoiding those functions, and roll our own versions, like this for example;

Rust code
fn starts_with<T>(slice: &[T], prefix: &[T]) -> bool
where
    T: PartialEq,
{
    if slice.len() < prefix.len() {
        false
    } else {
        // this is not an idiomatic for loop - but the for..in
        // version using ranges *also* pulls in compiler builtins
        // we don't currently have.
        let mut i = 0;
        while i < prefix.len() {
            if slice[i] != prefix[i] {
                return false;
            }
            i += 1;
        }
        true
    }
}

The second option, which we're going to go with, is to use the compiler-builtins crate.

memcpy and friends are optional, so we'll need to opt into its mem feature:

Shell session
$ cargo add --features mem compiler_builtins
    Updating 'https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index' index
      Adding compiler_builtins v0.1.26 to dependencies with features: ["mem"]

And just like that, we're good!

Next up, I'd like to add a hexadecimal formatting routine - the same way we had decimal formatting:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/support.rs`

pub fn print_hex(n: usize) {
    if n > 15 {
        print_hex(n / 16);
    }

    let u = (n % 16) as u8;
    let c = match u {
        0..=9 => b'0' + u,
        _ => b'a' + u - 10,
    };
    print_str(&[c]);
}

pub enum PrintArg<'a> {
    String(&'a [u8]),
    Number(usize),
    // new!
    Hex(usize),
}

pub fn print(args: &[PrintArg]) {
    for arg in args {
        match arg {
            PrintArg::String(s) => print_str(s),
            PrintArg::Number(n) => print_num(*n),
            // new:
            PrintArg::Hex(n) => {
                print_str(b"0x");
                print_hex(*n);
            }
        }
    }
}

Finally, I'd like a type to deal with auxiliary vectors.

Nothing too fancy, just a simple struct that:

  • knows the name of a few entry types
  • knows how to format a few entry values: as a decimal number, a hexadecimal number, or as a null-terminated string
Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`

#[derive(PartialEq)]
struct Auxv {
    typ: u64,
    val: u64,
}

impl Auxv {
    fn name(&self) -> &[u8] {
        match self.typ {
            2 => b"AT_EXECFD",
            3 => b"AT_PHDR",
            4 => b"AT_PHENT",
            5 => b"AT_PHNUM",
            6 => b"AT_PAGESZ",
            7 => b"AT_BASE",
            8 => b"AT_FLAGS",
            9 => b"AT_ENTRY",
            11 => b"AT_UID",
            12 => b"AT_EUID",
            13 => b"AT_GID",
            14 => b"AT_EGID",
            15 => b"AT_PLATFORM",
            16 => b"AT_HWCAP",
            17 => b"AT_CLKTCK",
            23 => b"AT_SECURE",
            24 => b"AT_BASE_PLATFORM",
            25 => b"AT_RANDOM",
            26 => b"AT_HWCAP2",
            31 => b"AT_EXECFN",
            32 => b"AT_SYSINFO",
            33 => b"AT_SYSINFO_EHDR",
            _ => b"??",
        }
    }

    fn formatted_val(&self) -> PrintArg<'_> {
        match self.typ {
            3 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 25 | 26 | 33 => PrintArg::Hex(self.val as usize),
            31 | 15 => {
                let s = unsafe {
                    let ptr = self.val as *const u8;
                    core::slice::from_raw_parts(ptr, strlen(ptr))
                };
                PrintArg::String(s)
            }
            _ => PrintArg::Number(self.val as usize),
        }
    }
}

With that out of the way, we can print arguments, a few environment variables, and auxiliary vectors fairly easily:

Rust code
// in `samples/echidna/src/main.rs`


#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe fn main(stack_top: *const u8) {
    let argc = *(stack_top as *const u64);
    let argv = stack_top.add(8) as *const *const u8;

    use core::slice::from_raw_parts as mkslice;
    let args = mkslice(argv, argc as usize);

    println!(b"received ", argc as usize, b" arguments:");
    for &arg in args {
        let arg = mkslice(arg, strlen(arg));
        println!(b" - ", arg);
    }

    const ALLOWED_ENV_VARS: &'static [&[u8]] = &[b"USER=", b"SHELL=", b"LANG="];
    fn is_envvar_allowed(var: &[u8]) -> bool {
        for prefix in ALLOWED_ENV_VARS {
            if var.starts_with(prefix) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        false
    }

    println!(b"environment variables:");
    let mut envp = argv.add(argc as usize + 1) as *const *const u8;
    let mut filtered = 0;
    while !(*envp).is_null() {
        let var = *envp;
        let var = mkslice(var, strlen(var));

        if is_envvar_allowed(var) {
            println!(b" - ", var);
        } else {
            filtered += 1;
        }

        envp = envp.add(1);
    }
    println!(b"(+ ", filtered, b" redacted environment variables)");

    println!(b"auxiliary vectors:");
    let mut auxv = envp.add(1) as *const Auxv;

    let null_auxv = Auxv { typ: 0, val: 0 };

    while (*auxv) != null_auxv {
        println!(b" - ", (*auxv).name(), b": ", (*auxv).formatted_val());
        auxv = auxv.add(1);
    }

    exit(0);
}

Let's take it for a spin:

Shell session
$ cargo b && ./target/debug/echidna foo bar baz
received 4 arguments:
 - ./target/debug/echidna
 - foo
 - bar
 - baz
environment variables:
 - LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 - SHELL=/bin/zsh
 - USER=amos
(+ 50 redacted environment variables)
auxiliary vectors:
 - AT_SYSINFO_EHDR: 0x7ffcfe3f1000
 - AT_HWCAP: 0x178bfbff
 - AT_PAGESZ: 4096
 - AT_CLKTCK: 100
 - AT_PHDR: 0x55d1da36c040
 - AT_PHENT: 56
 - AT_PHNUM: 11
 - AT_BASE: 0x7f18ec8c5000
 - AT_FLAGS: 0
 - AT_ENTRY: 0x55d1da36ddc0
 - AT_UID: 1000
 - AT_EUID: 1000
 - AT_GID: 1001
 - AT_EGID: 1001
 - AT_SECURE: 0
 - AT_RANDOM: 0x7ffcfe3eca49
 - AT_HWCAP2: 0x0
 - AT_EXECFN: ./target/debug/echidna
 - AT_PLATFORM: x86_64

Wonderful.

So uh.. I guess this is the end of this post and.. oh RIGHT, right, we're writing an ELF loader. I mean, an ELF packer! Either or, really.

Can we run echidna through elk?

Shell session
$ ../../target/debug/elk run ./target/debug/echidna
Loading "/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/debug/echidna"
Parsing failed:
String("Unknown SectionType 1879048193 (0x70000001)") at position 0:
00000000: 01 00 00 70 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 32 00 00 00 00 00 00
Fatal error: ELF object could not be parsed: /home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/debug/echidna

Huh, that's a new one. No, really. I'm as surprised as you are.

This one took a bit of digging, but apparently it's SHT_X86_64_UNWIND, which corresponds to the .eh_frame section:

Shell session
$ readelf -WS target/debug/echidna | grep _UNWIND
  [10] .eh_frame         X86_64_UNWIND   0000000000005a98 005a98 000c48 00   A  0   0  8

Okay, no big deal, we're not planning on reading unwind information any time soon, let's just add it to the SectionType enum and forget about it:

Rust code
// in `delf/src/lib.rs`

#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq, TryFromPrimitive)]
#[repr(u32)]
pub enum SectionType {
    // omitted: other variants
    X8664Unwind = 0x70000001,
}

Let's try this again:

Rust code
$ cd elk/
$ cargo b -q
$ ./target/debug/elk run ./samples/echidna/target/debug/echidna
Loading "/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/debug/echidna"
received 94348905459012 arguments:
[1]    87167 segmentation fault (core dumped)  ../../target/debug/elk run ./target/debug/echidna

Okay! Okay, we're getting somewhere.

So this is very expected: we're not setting up the stack in any way, so echidna is reading garbage instead of argc and argv.

So let's set up the stack just right.

First off - if we want to pass command-line arguments, we need to let argh (the crate we use to parse elk's command-line arguments) know that we accept some extra ones for the run subcommand:

Rust code
// in `elk/src/main.rs`

#[derive(FromArgs, PartialEq, Debug)]
#[argh(subcommand, name = "run")]
/// Load and run an ELF executable
struct RunArgs {
    #[argh(positional)]
    /// the absolute path of an executable file to load and run
    exec_path: String,

    #[argh(positional)]
    /// arguments for the executable file
    args: Vec<String>,
}

Next, we'll do a little spring cleanup - right now, main.rs takes care of the whole startup process. How about we move that to process.rs?

Rust code
// in `elk/src/process.rs`

use std::ffi::CString;

// This struct has a lifetime, because it takes a reference to an `Object` - so
// it's only "valid" for as long as the `Object` itself lives.
pub struct StartOptions<'a> {
    pub exec: &'a Object,
    pub args: Vec<CString>,
    pub env: Vec<CString>,
    pub auxv: Vec<Auxv>,
}

We'll be passing these options whenever we want to start a process with elk.

CString is an owned string type (it keeps track of / frees the underlying the storage) that makes sure our strings don't contain NULL bytes and are NULL-terminated - just like C (and Unix, here) wants them.

Cool bear's hot tip

For more (a lot more) about strings, check out Working with strings in Rust.

As for auxiliary vectors, well, let's make our own type. This is going to get a bit lengthy - check the code comments for explanations:

Rust code
// in `elk/src/process.rs`

// This is really just an `u64` - having it as an `enum` in Rust lets us define
// variants, get a nice, auto-derived `Debug` implementation, and have
// associated functions.
#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy)]
#[repr(u64)]
pub enum AuxType {
    /// End of vector
    Null = 0,
    /// Entry should be ignored
    Ignore = 1,
    /// File descriptor of program
    ExecFd = 2,
    /// Program headers for program
    PHdr = 3,
    /// Size of program header entry
    PhEnt = 4,
    /// Number of program headers
    PhNum = 5,
    /// System page size
    PageSz = 6,
    /// Base address of interpreter
    Base = 7,
    /// Flags
    Flags = 8,
    /// Entry point of program
    Entry = 9,
    /// Program is not ELF
    NotElf = 10,
    /// Real uid
    Uid = 11,
    /// Effective uid
    EUid = 12,
    /// Real gid
    Gid = 13,
    /// Effective gid
    EGid = 14,
    /// String identifying CPU for optimizations
    Platform = 15,
    /// Arch-dependent hints at CPU capabilities
    HwCap = 16,
    /// Frequency at which times() increments
    ClkTck = 17,
    /// Secure mode boolean
    Secure = 23,
    /// String identifying real platform, may differ from Platform
    BasePlatform = 24,
    /// Address of 16 random bytes
    Random = 25,
    // Extension of HwCap
    HwCap2 = 26,
    /// Filename of program
    ExecFn = 31,

    SysInfo = 32,
    SysInfoEHdr = 33,
}

// Here's our "auxiliary vector" struct -
// just two `u64` in a trench coat.
pub struct Auxv {
    typ: AuxType,
    value: u64,
}

impl Auxv {
    // A list of all the auxiliary types we know (and care) about
    const KNOWN_TYPES: &'static [AuxType] = &[
        AuxType::ExecFd,
        AuxType::PHdr,
        AuxType::PhEnt,
        AuxType::PhNum,
        AuxType::PageSz,
        AuxType::Base,
        AuxType::Flags,
        AuxType::Entry,
        AuxType::NotElf,
        AuxType::Uid,
        AuxType::EUid,
        AuxType::Gid,
        AuxType::EGid,
        AuxType::Platform,
        AuxType::HwCap,
        AuxType::ClkTck,
        AuxType::Secure,
        AuxType::BasePlatform,
        AuxType::Random,
        AuxType::HwCap2,
        AuxType::ExecFn,
        AuxType::SysInfo,
        AuxType::SysInfoEHdr,
    ];

    // this is a quick libc binding thrown together (so we don't
    // have to pull in the `libc` crate).
    pub fn get(typ: AuxType) -> Option<Self> {
        extern "C" {
            // from libc
            fn getauxval(typ: u64) -> u64;
        }

        unsafe {
            match getauxval(typ as u64) {
                0 => None,
                value => Some(Self { typ, value }),
            }
        }
    }

    // returns a list of all aux vectors passed to us
    // *that we know about*.
    pub fn get_known() -> Vec<Self> {
        Self::KNOWN_TYPES
            .iter()
            .copied()
            .filter_map(Self::get)
            .collect()
    }
}

Remember that elk is just a regular ELF program. It gets started much the same way echidna is - at some point there, the Linux kernel puts auxiliary vectors on the stack, then hands off control to libc.

libc stashes those somewhere, and getauxval (not a syscall) is the way to get them back, way, way later, when there's a lot of other stuff on top of the stack.

This way of getting the auxiliary vectors is actually much simpler and what a regular person is likely to do. And I mean regular not as a derogatory term, but as "someone who isn't actively trying — despite repeated warnings from their friends — to make a dynamic linker".

Rust code
// in `elk/src/process.rs`

impl Process {
    pub fn start(&self, opts: &StartOptions) {
        let exec = opts.exec;
        let entry_point = exec.file.entry_point + exec.base;
        let stack = Self::build_stack(opts);

        unsafe { jmp(entry_point.as_ptr(), stack.as_ptr(), stack.len()) };
    }
}

Next up is build_stack itself.

We've seen the structure earlier, now we just have to follow it.

As a reminder:

Rust code
// in `elk/src/process.rs`

impl Process {
    fn build_stack(opts: &StartOptions) -> Vec<u64> {
        let mut stack = Vec::new();

        let null = 0_u64;

        macro_rules! push {
            ($x:expr) => {
                stack.push($x as u64)
            };
        }

        // note: everything is pushed in reverse order

        // argc
        push!(opts.args.len());

        // argv
        for v in &opts.args {
            // `CString.as_ptr()` gives us the address of a memory
            // location containing a null-terminated string.
            // Note that we borrow `StartOptions`, so as long as it's
            // still live by the time we jump to the entry point, we
            // don't have to worry about it being freed too early.
            push!(v.as_ptr());
        }
        push!(null);

        // envp
        for v in &opts.env {
            push!(v.as_ptr());
        }
        push!(null);

        // auxv
        for v in &opts.auxv {
            push!(v.typ);
            push!(v.value);
        }
        push!(AuxType::Null);
        push!(null);

        // align stack to 16-byte boundary
        if stack.len() % 2 == 1 {
            stack.push(0);
        }

        stack
    }
}
Cool bear's hot tip

You may have notice we don't actually put the "argument strings" and "environment strings" on the stack.

They live on elk's stack. And we never bother to free it, so it remains available for the lifetime of whichever program we launch.

Then of course there's jmp.

Up until now, it was as simple as possible:

Rust code
// in `elk/src/main.rs`

unsafe fn jmp(addr: *const u8) {
    let fn_ptr: fn() = std::mem::transmute(addr);
    fn_ptr();
}

But where we're going.. we'll need inline assembly. Let's enable the feature for elk (we already enabled it for echidna):

Rust code
// in `elk/src/main.rs`
#[feature(asm)]

Since this is our first unstable feature for elk, we also need to switch to the nightly channel, so, we'll need to create a rust-toolchain file with the following contents:

[toolchain]
channel = "nightly"
components = [ "rustfmt", "clippy" ]
targets = [ "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu" ]
Cool bear's hot tip

If you have both elk and delf in a Cargo workspace, you'll need to put the rust-toolchain file at the very top of the workspace. Otherwise, you can put it directly in elk.

Point is, cargo check should stop complaining that we're pulling in an unstable feature.

And move it over to process.rs. It's a tiny bit involved, compared to the stuff we've done so far, so there are inline comments:

Rust code
// in `elk/src/process.rs`

#[inline(never)]
unsafe fn jmp(entry_point: *const u8, stack_contents: *const u64, qword_count: usize) {
    asm!(
        // allocate (qword_count * 8) bytes
        "mov {tmp}, {qword_count}",
        "sal {tmp}, 3",
        "sub rsp, {tmp}",

        ".l1:",
        // start at i = (n-1)
        "sub {qword_count}, 1",
        // copy qwords to the stack
        "mov {tmp}, QWORD PTR [{stack_contents}+{qword_count}*8]",
        "mov QWORD PTR [rsp+{qword_count}*8], {tmp}",
        // loop if i isn't zero, break otherwise
        "test {qword_count}, {qword_count}",
        "jnz .l1",

        "jmp {entry_point}",

        entry_point = in(reg) entry_point,
        stack_contents = in(reg) stack_contents,
        qword_count = in(reg) qword_count,
        tmp = out(reg) _,
    )
}
Cool bear's hot tip

The inline(never) annotation will let us break on jmp.

Finally, let's use our new process-starting facilities from main.rs:

Rust code
// in `elk/src/main.rs`

fn cmd_run(args: RunArgs) -> Result<(), Box<dyn Error>> {
    // these are the usual steps
    let mut proc = process::Process::new();
    let exec_index = proc.load_object_and_dependencies(&args.exec_path)?;
    proc.apply_relocations()?;
    proc.adjust_protections()?;

    // we'll need those to handle C-style strings (null-terminated)
    use std::ffi::CString;

    let exec = &proc.objects[exec_index];
    // the first argument is typically the path to the executable itself.
    // that's not something `argh` gives us, so let's add it ourselves
    let args = std::iter::once(CString::new(args.exec_path.as_bytes()).unwrap())
        .chain(
            args.args
                .iter()
                .map(|s| CString::new(s.as_bytes()).unwrap()),
        )
        .collect();

    let opts = process::StartOptions {
        exec,
        args,
        // on the stack, environment variables are null-terminated `K=V` strings.
        // the Rust API gives us key-value pairs, so we need to build those strings
        // ourselves
        env: std::env::vars()
            .map(|(k, v)| CString::new(format!("{}={}", k, v).as_bytes()).unwrap())
            .collect(),
        // right now we pass all *our* auxiliary vectors to the underlying process.
        // note that some of those aren't quite correct - there's a `Base` auxiliary
        // vector, for example, which is set to `elk`'s base address, not `echidna`'s!
        auxv: process::Auxv::get_known(),
    };
    proc.start(&opts);

    Ok(())
}

And with that, we're all set:

Shell session
$ cd elk/
$ cargo build --release --quiet
$ ./target/release/elk run samples/echidna/target/release/echidna foo bar baz
Loading "/home/amos/ftl/elf-series/samples/echidna/target/release/echidna"
received 4 arguments:
 - samples/echidna/target/release/echidna
 - foo
 - bar
 - baz
environment variables:
 - SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh
 - LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 - USER=amos
(+ 52 redacted environment variables)
auxiliary vectors:
 - AT_PHDR: 0x564fcd623040
 - AT_PHENT: 56
 - AT_PHNUM: 12
 - AT_PAGESZ: 4096
 - AT_BASE: 0x7f62f04d7000
 - AT_ENTRY: 0x564fcd62c070
 - AT_UID: 1000
 - AT_EUID: 1000
 - AT_GID: 1000
 - AT_EGID: 1000
 - AT_PLATFORM: x86_64
 - AT_HWCAP: 0x2
 - AT_CLKTCK: 100
 - AT_RANDOM: 0x7fffc5473c79
 - AT_EXECFN: ./target/release/elk
 - AT_SYSINFO_EHDR: 0x7fffc55bf000

Wonderful!

I'm curious... does it run regular C programs yet?

Shell session
$ ../../target/release/elk run /bin/ls
Loading "/usr/bin/ls"
Loading "/usr/lib/libcap.so.2.33"
Loading "/usr/lib/libc-2.31.so"
Fatal error: Could not read symbols from ELF object: Parsing error: String("Unknown SymType 6 (0x6)"):
input: 16 00 18 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Nope! Worth a try though.

We're getting awfully close though. Pinky promise.

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Here's another article just for you:

Aiming for correctness with types

The Nature weekly journal of science was first published in 1869. And after one and a half century, it has finally completed one cycle of carcinization, by publishing an article about the Rust programming language.

It's a really good article.

What I liked about this article is that it didn't just talk about performance, or even just memory safety - it also talked about correctness.