Re: Q: How to report ELF Loader Bugs in Kernel 2.4.2

[Erik Mouw <J.A.K.Mouw@ITS.TUDelft.NL>]

On Fri, Oct 05, 2001 at 05:38:29PM -0400, Dave Blackburn wrote:
> I've stumbled on the following apparent bugs in Kernel 2.4.2.
> I'm not sure the best place to post this so I decided
> to ask here.
> 
> Perhaps this bug is already known.
> Is there a place I can look?

The changelogs on kernelnewbies.org would certainly give you a clue.

> I'm under the impression that there is no official
> bug tracking database in place for the kernel.
> Is this correct?

There are. For vendor supplied kernels use your vendors bug tracking
system. For kernels you downloaded for ftp.##.kernel.org, it's called
the linux-kernel mailing list (see REPORTING-BUGS).

> An ELF file executes with kernel 2.2.14 (RH6.2) but fails to
> execute with kernel 2.4.2 (RH7.1).
> 
> Bug 1: 
> "No such file or directory" is reported although the file exists.
> If the 2.4 loader dislikes the file content, an appropriate
> error message should be provided.

The error message is a userland problem. More specifically, it is
printed by glibc.

> Bug2:
> The file fails to execute under Kernel 2.4.2.
> The file is quite old.
> However, if feasable, old ELF files should continue
> working.

AFAIK linux still uses the same ELF format as with the introduction of
ELF six years ago.

> I can ftp the ELF file if someone would like to
> investigate this further.

Not neccessary, I think you stumbled over a library problem. Run "ldd"
over your binary and see what libraries it wants to use. In most cases
installing a package with old libraries solves the problem. The easiest
way is of course to recompile the packages against the new libraries.

> With some encouragement and suggestions, I would be
> willing to look deeper into these bugs.
> I have disk space for another bootable partition.

Well, there were some ELF loader bugs fixed in linux-2.4.11-pre3 and
2.4.10-ac5, but that were certainly not the bugs you described.


Erik

-- 
J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031,  2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-2783635  Fax: +31-15-2781843  Email: J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/
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