A module that names a shared library in DT_NEEDED now gets it loaded and
its imports bound against it, rather than being refused.
libelf_insert() does the loading, which is what dlopen() calls anyway: the
library lands in the module registry like anything else, its exports come
back through libelf_getsymbol() -- the same call dlsym() uses -- and a
library named by two modules is loaded once. A bare name is looked for
along LD_LIBRARY_PATH, where dlopen() looks for it. Undefined symbols
resolve against the globally registered symbols first, then the modules
this one depends on, then the table exec() supplied. Nothing here calls
into dlfcn, because this loader is also the kernel's module loader, which
has none.
Each library becomes one of the module's dependencies[], and the dependency
holds it in place of the reference libelf_insert() took. So a library
loaded only for DT_NEEDED is kept by the modules that depend on it, and
libelf_undepend() unloads it with the last of them; one that dlopen() or
insmod also opened stays until that reference goes too.
CONFIG_LIBC_ELF_MAXDEPEND bounds how many libraries a module may name,
which is what it already meant.
Six things had to be fixed to make it work, none of which a build shows.
reldata was a file-scope global. Loading a library from inside
libelf_relocatedyn() makes that function reentrant, so the nested load
overwrote the outer one's relocation offsets and the module resumed binding
with the library's DT_REL. It is now per call.
A cross-object call needs the callee's data base, not the caller's. A
symbol resolved from an FDPIC library comes back as a descriptor, and
R_ARM_FUNCDESC_VALUE was treating it as a code address and pairing it with
the importing module's GOT. It now copies both words, so the library runs
with its own.
An object with no imports has no PLT and so no DT_PLTGOT, but it still has
a GOT and still has to be entered with it. Without the fallback its
descriptors carried a data base of zero and the library read its globals
through a null pointer.
R_ARM_FUNCDESC, a pointer to a descriptor, wrapped a library's descriptor
in a second one. It now stores the library's descriptor as it is.
The flag that says a resolved value is a descriptor was set only for an
import and never cleared, so the next relocation against a symbol of the
module itself took that symbol for a descriptor too. It is cleared there.
libelf_symname() was static, and reading a DT_NEEDED name needs it.
A module with DT_NEEDED is refused where CONFIG_LIBC_ELF_MAXDEPEND is zero,
since that is where the dependency logic is compiled out.
A DT_NEEDED library is one shared instance, its data included, because the
loader returns the object already in the registry. A module started with
exec() is different: that path loads the module afresh each time, so two
running instances have separate data while sharing one copy of the text.
Built for mps3-an547:picostest with CONFIG_FDPIC both ways. Run on
mps2-an500:xipfs under QEMU: fdpicxip solib loads libcounter.so by name out
of DT_NEEDED, two instances share one pinned copy of its text, and the
library is unloaded, and its pin given back, when the second one exits. A
library also opened with dlopen() stays loaded after its DT_NEEDED user
exits, and dlclose() unloads it.
With CONFIG_ARCH_ADDRENV the program runs in its own address space, which
a library libelf_insert() loads cannot reach, so DT_NEEDED is refused
there as before.
Assisted-by: Claude Code:claude-opus-5-5
Signed-off-by: Marco Casaroli <marco.casaroli@gmail.com>
A function pointer under FDPIC is not a code address. Because each
PT_LOAD segment is placed independently, a pointer has to carry the data
base its callee will need, so it is a two-word descriptor: the entry
point, and the base to install in the PIC register before branching.
R_ARM_FUNCDESC_VALUE says "the thing you are patching is such a
descriptor", and R_ARM_FUNCDESC says "manufacture one and give me its
address".
Both need state a relocation cannot carry. A descriptor's second word is
the *object's* data base, from DT_PLTGOT, and R_ARM_FUNCDESC carves
descriptors from a pool whose cursor has to survive from one relocation
to the next. up_relocate() is handed only a relocation, a resolved
symbol and an address to patch.
arch_data is the existing channel for exactly this -- RISC-V already uses
it to remember a HI20 relocation while its LO12 partner is processed --
but nothing has ever put loader state into it: it is declared zeroed and
written only by up_relocate() itself. So ARCH_ELFDATA_INIT and
ARCH_ELFDATA_FINI are added, seeding the block from the loadinfo before
the relocation loop and reading the cursor back after. Both default to
nothing, so an architecture that does not define them is unaffected, and
RISC-V's use of arch_data is untouched. libelf_relocatedyn() walks both
dynamic tables under one arch_data, so the cursor spans the whole object.
The addend handling is the part that is easy to get wrong. REL format
keeps the addend in place, in the word about to become the entry point,
and a pointer to a static function is referenced through its *section*
symbol -- the value is the section base and the offset, including the
Thumb bit, is entirely in the addend. Dropping it yields an even address
and the core faults trying to execute it as ARM code.
The GOT written into a descriptor is the loading object's own, even for
an imported function, which is what makes a callback work: when the base
firmware's qsort() calls back into a module's comparison function, the
module needs its own data base in the PIC register.
libelf_relocatedyn()'s imported-symbol path needed a change to suit. It
stores the resolved address directly and never calls up_relocate(), which
cannot produce a two-word descriptor, so under FDPIC the resolved value
now goes through up_relocate() and the relocation type decides what to
write.
Implemented for armv7-m and armv8-m, the profiles FDPIC targets; the
other ARM variants gain the arch_data block but no new relocations.
Built and booted mps3-an547:picostest and lm3s6965-ek:qemu-nxflat, the
ELF PIC and NXFLAT users of this code, both unchanged.
Assisted-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Casaroli <marco.casaroli@gmail.com>
An ET_DYN object is loaded into one allocation with its data behind its
text, because its data references sit at a fixed distance from the code
that makes them. An FDPIC object does not work that way: it reaches its
data through a base register, so the two segments can be placed wherever
suits, and the point of the format is that the read-only one is left on
the media and executed there while only the writable one is copied. One
copy of the text then serves every instance.
So libelf_load() grows a second case. The object announces itself in the
OS/ABI byte, which is noted once in libelf_loadhdrs() rather than
re-derived; e_flags cannot be used for this, as an FDPIC object's are an
unremarkable EABI version and testing them would reject every valid
module. Text is taken from the media address plus the segment's own file
offset -- the same arithmetic the ET_REL path already does with
sh_offset -- and libelf_loadfile() does not read it. If the filesystem
cannot show its media, the loader copies the text to RAM instead. The
module then loses the shared text and the flash saving, but it runs.
Obtaining that address needs two mechanisms, and they are not
interchangeable. A compacting filesystem can move a file's blocks, so it
hands out an address only with a pin that holds them still and expects
the pin back; xipfs is the one in tree. A filesystem whose layout never
changes has nothing to hold and answers FIOC_XIPBASE with a bare address;
romfs and tmpfs are those. libelf_xipacquire() asks for the pin first,
because a filesystem that needs one is not safe without it, and
libelf_unload() gives it back. The loader asks for a pin only if it can
hold one, or the pin would stay for ever.
The pin is thus not specific to FDPIC. Any module that executes in place
from a compacting filesystem takes one, and gives it back at unload.
mmap() is not used, though both filesystems implement it. The mapping
would be recorded against whichever task called the loader, while the
release happens when the module's own task exits, which is a different
group -- so the pin would outlive the module and the extent would never
become movable again.
Unloading has to change with placement: the existing path frees only
textalloc because ET_DYN had a single allocation, which would leak an
FDPIC object's data and free media the filesystem only lent us.
Nothing here runs for a non-FDPIC object; every branch is behind the flag
and the single-allocation path is untouched. Built and booted
mps3-an547:picostest, which is CONFIG_ELF with CONFIG_PIC, with no change
in behaviour.
Assisted-by: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Casaroli <marco.casaroli@gmail.com>
Most tools used for compliance and SBOM generation use SPDX identifiers
This change brings us a step closer to an easy SBOM generation.
Signed-off-by: Alin Jerpelea <alin.jerpelea@sony.com>
