Re: RFD: x32 ABI system call numbers

From: Florian Weimer
Date: Tue Sep 06 2011 - 17:36:40 EST


* Linus Torvalds:

> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 5:36 PM, Linus Torvalds
> <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> There is *ZERO* reason to not use it. Use the standard 64-bit
>> structure layout. Why the hell would it be a new system call?
>
> Oh, I see why you do that. It's because our 64-bit 'struct stat' uses
> "unsigned long" etc.
>
> Just fix that. Make it use __u64 instead of "unsigned long", and
> everything should "just work". The 64-bit kernel will not change any
> ABI, and when you compile your new ia32 model, it will do the right
> thing too.

And even if you don't want to do that (probably somebody wants to
recompile broken applications, same rationale as for n32, see
<http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2011-02/msg00243.html>), you can still do
the translation in user space. Then tools like strace and valgrind
just work, and you don't risk introducing kernel vulnerabilities
through broken translation code.
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