Re: Adding(?) XI support to MIPS-Linux?

[Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de>]

Brian Foster wrote:
[snip]
>  2) Kevin D. Kissell wrote:
>  2)[ ... ]
>  2) > Well, strictly speaking, you wouldn't actually *need* to modify
>  2) > binutils to make specially tagged binaries.  [ ... ]
>  2)
>  2) This exists already in ld's -z execstack/noexecstack feature.
> 
> Good point.  Thanks for the reminder.
> 
>  2) It is not used by default because too many things depend on executable
>  2) stacks on MIPS.
> 
> Ah!  Can you be more specific please?  At the present time
> I'm only aware of three situations where executable stacks
> are magically used ("magic" meaning it's being done without
> the programmer explicitly coding it):
> 
>   1. sigreturn.
>   2. something to do with FPU emulation?
>   3. pointer to a nested function (gcc extension).

Those, plus manually coded trampolines in e.g. foreign function
interfacing (which are typically hidden in some library). I don't
know if you can ignore that completely. :-)

> And, significantly, I am do not know of any need for the
> kernel-mode stacks to be executable.  Except, perhaps,
> for case 3, the above are (should be?) user-land only.

AFAIK nested functions are frowned upon in kernelspace.


Thiemo