Solo – a .so loader for static Linux binaries

(github.com)

21 points | by zX41ZdbW 1 hour ago

4 comments

  • nomel 15 minutes ago
    I don't know much about musl.

    > GPU: Vulkan and OpenGL drivers are supplied by the host as shared objects, usually built against glibc, and a fully static musl binary cannot normally dlopen() them.

    Why? Have people managed to break the ancient concept of shared libraries, and this is a fix for that?

    • okanat 6 minutes ago
      Because glibc and GNU set a terrible precedent. On GNU/Linux systems the shared binary interpreter / loader, GCC compiler, the C library and the system C/C++ ABI all depend into each other. You cannot change any of them independently. All shared libraries depend on the specific glibc version to load them into memory to be able to use that specific glibc version as their C library and make calls like dlopen.

      Shared libraries have always been broken in Linux. Unfortunately many things like GPU drivers, graphics libraries and NSS need shared libraries to dynamically load certain runtimes (because you don't want to load all possible GPU drivers in existence to your RAM). So an ecosystem has been developed on top of terrible ABI and architecture GNU/glibc provided.

    • ranger_danger 10 minutes ago
      musl does not perfectly emulate all aspects of glibc, so trying to use libraries that assume glibc can sometimes lead to problems.
  • j16sdiz 22 minutes ago
    > backed by its own ELF loader (x86-64 and aarch64) and a glibc ABI bridge

    Yacks

    • fabiensanglard 16 minutes ago
      Please elaborate and explain to people with less knowledge why this is bad.
      • arjvik 5 minutes ago
        Mapping parts of files into executable memory, and then executing them, had better be bulletproof! Exploiting this seems like a direct path to RCE, and it's likely that this sort of library is used by privileged code.

        Purely academically, this is a very cool piece of code! Just hoping that it gets a thorough vetting before used by privileged/security-critical software :)

    • lunixbochs 15 minutes ago
  • catlifeonmars 17 minutes ago
    So not completely static, since it must link against a libc :P
    • pg83 0 minutes ago
      The binary itself is completely static; the link even provides commands on how to check this!
  • jeffbee 14 minutes ago
    How are we supposed to take this stuff seriously if the author (sic) isn't even willing to write the readme? Claude exists! If I want some slop I can push the button myself.