[llvm-dev] Multi-architecture (ELF or other) loaders and dynamic linkers available?

[Friedman, Eli via llvm-dev]

On 4/3/2018 9:33 AM, ardi via llvm-dev wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for some sort of "universal loader and dynamic linker",
> capable of loading in memory an executable (ELF or other, the format
> is not a requisite at this time) for any of the "major" architectures
> that have LLVM backends (namely: x86, x86_64, ARM, ARM64, PPC, PPC64,
> MIPS32, MIPS64), including also relocation, and loading of symbols
> from dynamic libraries that the executable depends on.
>
> The final memory representation of the executable should be "ready to
> be executed". Before you ask "what OS?, what about syscalls?", let's
> assume the executable doesn't use any library from the OS, and that
> there are only a couple of basic syscalls for terminal I/O only, and
> that such syscalls are already hooked in advance by a tweaked C
> runtime (i.e.: the executable won't use any syscall protocol, just
> call hooks in the loader, thanks to the tweaked C runtime).
>
> Does LLVM provide any infrastructure ready for doing this?

RuntimeDyld is a runtime linker which supports all the architectures you 
listed. And it works cross-target, which might be hard to find 
otherwise.  But it's meant for use with objects generated with MCJIT, 
not arbitrary executables, so it might be missing some features you 
need. See https://llvm.org/docs/MCJITDesignAndImplementation.html .

-Eli

-- 
Employee of Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of Code Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project