Subject: kernel should not reject -mips2 ELF binaries

From: "Jay Carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 21:20:00 -0500

include/asm-mips/elf.h contains a macro, elf_check_arch, that decides if an
executable is plausible to run under this kernel.  It currently accepts
binaries flagged as MIPS1 ISA, and rejects all other ISAs.

#define elf_check_arch(hdr)						\
({									\
	int __res = 1;							\
	struct elfhdr *__h = (hdr);					\
									\
	if ((__h->e_machine != EM_MIPS) &&				\
	    (__h->e_machine != EM_MIPS_RS4_BE))				\
		__res = 0;						\
	if (__h->e_flags & EF_MIPS_ARCH)				\
		__res = 0;						\
									\
	__res;								\
})

I think we should make an exception for MIPS2.  Turns out that the two Linux
VR processor families benefit from some of the MIPS II features; most
notably, code density is improved by eliminating load delay slots.  If I
build executables that take advantage of this, they legitimately should be
flagged with E_MIPS_ARCH_2 (since they won't run on my decstation).

So what's the right way to fix this?  Three things come to mind:

1) rip out the EF_MIPS_ARCH check from elf_check_arch.
2) compare the value with E_MIPS_ARCH_1 and E_MIPS_ARCH_2
3) figure out what the capabilities of the current processor are and reject
E_MIPS_ARCH2 on R2/3000s.

I'd just go do #3 except it looks like a bigger pain than it's worth.  No
other linux kernel port goes to that amount of trouble, of course.

(I may do #1 or #2 in the Linux VR CVS as a stopgap.)

Jay

---

From: Ralf Baechle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 03:28:02 +0100

> 1) rip out the EF_MIPS_ARCH check from elf_check_arch.

Take 1).  The problem we have is distiguishing Linux binaries from IRIX
binaries.  The code causing problems for you is a heuristic that no
longer works these days so I'll have to come up with something new.

  Ralf

---

From: "Jay Carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 22:00:02 -0500

> longer works these days so I'll have to come up with something new.

OK.  I'm going to remove the above two lines in the Linux VR CVS repository.
Thanks!

Jay