[VicPiMakers Projects] How programs get run: ELF binaries

[James Canova]

Super.

On Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 3:31 p.m. Mark G. <vicpm+25 at palaceofretention.ca>
wrote:

> This popped up on Hacker News, and it was related to today's
> discussion with James and Dave.
>
> How programs get run: ELF binaries
>
> https://lwn.net/Articles/631631/
>
> It's an old article (2015), but I doubt that makes much of
> a difference.
>
> An excerpt:
>
> "The ELF format
>
> The ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) format is the main
> binary format in use on modern Linux systems, and support
> for it is implemented in the file fs/binfmt_elf.c. It's also
> a slightly complicated format for the kernel to handle; the
> main load_elf_binary() function spans over 400 lines, and
> the ELF support code is more than four times as big as the
> code that supports the old a.out format.
>
> An ELF file for an executable program (rather than a shared
> library or an object file) must always contain a program
> header table near the start of the file, after the ELF header;
> each entry in this table provides information that is needed
> to run the program. ..."
>
>
>
>
> --
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