[VicPiMakers Projects] How programs get run: ELF binaries

[Deid Reimer]

It's been years since I have needed to think about ELF.  What brought this up this morning?  And I'm sorry I missed it. 

⁣Deid   VA7REI​

On Oct 25, 2025, 3:56 p.m., at 3:56 p.m., Craig Miller <cvmiller at gmail.com> wrote:
>Thanks Mark,
>
>With that I found this good history, and more detail on the ELF format.
>
>https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~smccaman/courses/8980/spring2020/lectures/04-elf-v2-8up.pdf
>
>It even mentions the COFF format used before ELF.
>
>Craig...
>
>On 10/25/25 3:44 PM, James Canova wrote:
>> Super.
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 3:31 p.m. Mark G.
><vicpm+25 at palaceofretention.ca 
>> <mailto:vicpm%2B25 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/
><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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>>
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