Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:25:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Ryan C. Gordon" <icculus@icculus.org>
To: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org>
cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH 1/2] binfmt_elf: FatELF support in the binary
 loader.
In-Reply-To: <4AE22B34.7090103@goop.org>
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> It would be nice to have something that would conceptually work for
> other architectures with other executable file formats.  Granted ELF is
> most common, but its far from the only one.

It would be nice, but I'm not certain it's practical. I mean, if we embed 
a Windows .exe in there, Windows is never going to be able to load it, I 
presume.

That being said, I suppose there's no reason you _couldn't_ do that with 
the existing FatELF format. Just add an OSABI for, say, Windows PE files 
and embed one like anything else. Non-Windows platforms will ignore it 
because it's the wrong OSABI. If something tried to process it as an ELF 
file, it'll correctly believe it to be a corrupt file.

(Replace Windows with your favorite non-ELF platform if you like.)

This isn't really a goal of the project, but since you brought it up, it 
IS actually feasible with the existing code and framework.

> Well, its really a bit diseased, with lots of gristly bits and a few
> unexpected tubes sticking out the side.

Eww.

--ryan.


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