Readings

Beginner's Guide to Linkers
- 2010; David Drysdale
- https://www.lurklurk.org/linkers/linkers.html
Binary File Descriptor library (BFD)
- https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/bfd/
- https://publicclu2.blogspot.com/2013/05/binary-file-descriptor-library-bfd.html
Concurrent Linking with the GNU Gold Linker
- 2013 Thesis; Sander Mathijs van Veen
- https://smvv.io/gold.pdf
Linkers and Loaders
- ACM Computing Surveys, Volume 4, Number 3, September 1972
- Leon Presser, John R. White
- http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs162/sp06/hand-outs/p149-presser-linker-loader.pdf
Oracle Solaris 11.1 Linkers and Libraries Guide
- https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E26507/
The Missing Link: Explaining ELF Static Linking, Semantically
- OOPSLA 2016
- Stephen Kell, Dominic P. Mulligan, Peter Sewell
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/rems/papers/oopsla-elf-linking-2016.pdf
The Sad State of Symbol Aliases
- http://blog.omega-prime.co.uk/2011/07/06/the-sad-state-of-symbol-aliases/
The Theory, History and Future of System Linkers
- HelloGCC Workshop 2013; Luba Tang
- https://github.com/hellogcc/HelloGCC2013/blob/master/linker_overall.pdf

Readings: Blogs

Eli Bendersky - Linkers and loaders
- https://eli.thegreenplace.net/tag/linkers-and-loaders
- Load-time relocation of shared libraries
  - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/08/25/load-time-relocation-of-shared-libraries
- Position Independent Code (PIC) in shared libraries
  - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/11/03/position-independent-code-pic-in-shared-libraries
- Position Independent Code (PIC) in shared libraries on x64
  - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/11/11/position-independent-code-pic-in-shared-libraries-on-x64
- How statically linked programs run on Linux
  - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2012/08/13/how-statically-linked-programs-run-on-linux
- Library order in static linking
  - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2013/07/09/library-order-in-static-linking
Fun with weak symbols
- 2012; Mike Hommey
- https://glandium.org/blog/?p=2388
Ian Lance Taylor
- 20 part linker essay by Ian Lance Taylor
  - Notes: Day 40: Linkers are amazing.
    - 2013; Julia Evans
    - http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/10/day-40-learning-about-linkers/
  - TOC: https://checkoway.net/musings/linkers/
  - TOC: https://lwn.net/Articles/276782/
  - 1. Introduction, personal history, first half of what's-a-linker - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/38
  - 2. What's-a-linker: Dynamic linking, linker data types, linker operation - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/39
  - 3. Address spaces, Object file formats - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/40
  - 4. Shared Libraries - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/41
  - 5. More Shared Libraries -- specifically, linker implementation; ELF Symbols - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/42
  - 6. Relocations, Position Dependent Shared Libraries - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/43
  - 7. Thread Local Storage (TLS) optimization - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/44
  - 8. ELF Segments and Sections - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/45
  - 9. Symbol Versions, Relaxation optimization - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/46
  - 10. Parallel linking - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/47
  - 11. Archive format - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/48
  - 12. Symbol resolution - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/49
  - 13. Symbol resolution from the user's point of view; Static Linking vs. Dynamic Linking - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/50
  - 14. Link time optimization, aka Whole Program optimization; Initialization Code - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/51
  - 15. COMDAT sections - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/52
  - 16. C++ Template Instantiation, Exception Frames - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/53
  - 17. Warning Symbols - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/54
  - 18. Incremental Linking - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/55
  - 19. __start and __stop Symbols, Byte Swapping - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/56
  - 20. Last post; Update on gold's status - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/57
- Protected Symbols - https://www.airs.com/blog/archives/307
- gold
  - Gold Workqueues - https://www.airs.com/blog/archives/78
  - STT_GNU_IFUNC - https://www.airs.com/blog/archives/403
  - A New ELF Linker
    - GCC Summit 2008
    - Proceedings of the GCC Developers' Summit (2008)
    - https://research.google.com/pubs/pub34417.html
    - https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/HomePage?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=gcc-2008-proceedings.pdf
    - http://airs.com/ian/gold-slides.pdf
Nick Desaulniers
- Part 1 – Object Files and Symbols - https://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2016/08/13/object-files-and-symbols/
- Part 2 – Static and Dynamic Libraries - https://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2016/11/20/static-and-dynamic-libraries/
Stephen Kell
- Linking and loading: what's incidental?
  - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/research/linking-and-loading-complexity.html
- Dynamic linking and security
  - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/research/dynamic-linker-security.html
- C libraries and linking
  - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/research/c-libraries-compilers-and-linking.html
- Link order
  - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/devel/link-order.html
- Weak dynamic symbols
  - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~srk31/blog/devel/weak-symbols.html
Trevor Pounds
- Versioning Symbols for Shared Libraries (glibc)
  - https://web.archive.org/web/20150906233231/http://www.trevorpounds.com/blog/?p=33
- Linking to Older Versioned Symbols (glibc)
  - https://web.archive.org/web/20150906233154/http://www.trevorpounds.com/blog/?p=103

Readings: Books

Advanced C and C++ Compiling
- 2014; Milan Stevanovic
- "Engineering guide to C/C++ compiling, linking, and binary files structure"
- http://www.apress.com/9781430266679
- http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4302-6668-6
- https://github.com/apress/adv-c-cpp-compiling
Linkers and Loaders
- 1999; John R. Levine
- https://www.iecc.com/linker/

Readings: Linker Scripts

OSDev Wiki
- https://wiki.osdev.org/Category:Linkers
- Linker Scripts
  - http://wiki.osdev.org/Linker_Scripts
LD - Linker Scripts
- https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/ld/Scripts.html

Readings: LTO

(Ab)using LTO plugin API for system-wide shrinking of dynamic libraries
- GNU Tools Cauldron 2018
- Vladislav Ivanishin
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNYGB7dHgkc
- https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/cauldron2018?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=lto-plugin-api-abuse.pdf
GCC Wiki - LinkTimeOptimization
- https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/LinkTimeOptimization
Honza Hubička's Blog
- Linktime optimization in GCC, part 1 - brief history
  - http://hubicka.blogspot.com/2014/04/linktime-optimization-in-gcc-1-brief.html
- Linktime optimization in GCC, part 2 - Firefox
  - http://hubicka.blogspot.com/2014/04/linktime-optimization-in-gcc-2-firefox.html
- Linktime optimization in GCC, part 3 - LibreOffice
  - https://hubicka.blogspot.com/2014/09/linktime-optimization-in-gcc-part-3.html
- Link time and inter-procedural optimization improvements in GCC 5
  - https://hubicka.blogspot.com/2015/04/GCC5-IPA-LTO-news.html
- Building libreoffice with GCC 6 and LTO
  - https://hubicka.blogspot.com/2016/03/building-libreoffice-with-gcc-6-and-lto.html
- GCC 8: link time and interprocedural optimization
  - https://hubicka.blogspot.com/2018/06/gcc-8-link-time-and-interprocedural.html
LLVM Link Time Optimization: Design and Implementation
- https://llvm.org/docs/LinkTimeOptimization.html
Optimizing Large Applications
- 2014 Master's Thesis; Martin Liška
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6997
Optimizing real world applications with GCC Link Time Optimization
- 2010 GCC Developers' Summit; T. Glek, J. Hubicka
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1010.2196
ThinLTO
- ThinLTO: Scalable and Incremental LTO
  - http://blog.llvm.org/2016/06/thinlto-scalable-and-incremental-lto.html
- ThinLTO: Scalable and Incremental Link-Time Optimization
  - CppCon 2017; Teresa Johnson
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9nH2vZ2mNo
- ThinLTO: Scalable and incremental LTO
  - CGO 2017
  - Teresa Johnson, Mehdi Amini, and Xinliang David Li
  - https://research.google/pubs/pub47584/

Readings: OS: POSIX

Readings: OS: Windows

Raymond Chen - The Old New Thing
- Understanding the classical model for linking
  - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/tag/linker
  - Groundwork: The algorithm
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130107-00/?p=5633
  - Taking symbols along for the ride
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130108-00/?p=5623
  - You can override an LIB with another LIB, and a LIB with an OBJ, but you can’t override an OBJ
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130109-00/?p=5613
  - Sometimes you don’t want a symbol to come along for a ride
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130110-00/?p=5593
  - Understanding errors in classical linking: The delay-load catch-22
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130111-00/?p=5583
- Using linker segments and __declspec(allocate(…)) to arrange data in a specific order
  - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181107-00/?p=100155
- Gotchas when using linker sections to arrange data, part 1
  - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181108-00/?p=100165
- Gotchas when using linker sections to arrange data, part 2
  - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181109-00/?p=100175
- Why would the incremental linker insert padding between section fragments?
  - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190114-00/?p=100695

Readings: Relocations

Binary Dodo - Arun
- Investigating linking with COMMON symbols in ELF
  - https://binarydodo.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/investigating-linking-with-common-symbols-in-elf/
- Symbol binding types in ELF and their effect on linking of relocatable files
  - https://binarydodo.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/symbol-binding-types-in-elf-and-their-effect-on-linking-of-relocatable-files/
- Symbol resolution during link-editing
  - https://binarydodo.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/symbol-resolution-during-link-editing/
ELF Binaries and Relocation Entries - Stafford Horne
- http://stffrdhrn.github.io/hardware/embedded/openrisc/2019/11/29/relocs.html
Executable and Linkable Format 101 - Ignacio Sanmillan
- Part 3: Relocations - https://www.intezer.com/executable-and-linkable-format-101-part-3-relocations/
GOT and PLT
- https://systemoverlord.com/2017/03/19/got-and-plt-for-pwning.html
Ian Lance Taylor
- Linkers 2. What's-a-linker: Dynamic linking, linker data types, linker operation
  - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/39
- Linkers 5. More Shared Libraries -- specifically, linker implementation; ELF Symbols
  - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/42
- Linkers 6. Relocations, Position Dependent Shared Libraries
  - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/43
- Linkers 9. Symbol Versions, Relaxation optimization
  - http://www.airs.com/blog/archives/46
- Linker combreloc
  - https://www.airs.com/blog/archives/186
- Linker relro
  - https://www.airs.com/blog/archives/189
Introduction to the ELF Format - Keith Makan
- Part VI(1): The Symbol Table and Relocations - https://blog.k3170makan.com/2018/10/introduction-to-elf-format-part-vi.html
- Part VI(2): The Symbol Table and Relocations - https://blog.k3170makan.com/2018/10/introduction-to-elf-format-part-vi_18.html
- Part VI(3): More Relocation tricks - r_addend execution - https://blog.k3170makan.com/2018/10/introduction-to-elf-format-part-vi-more.html
Linkers and loaders - Eli Bendersky - http://eli.thegreenplace.net/tag/linkers-and-loaders
- Load-time relocation of shared libraries
  - https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/08/25/load-time-relocation-of-shared-libraries
Making our own executable packer - Amos Wenger
- ELF relocations - https://fasterthanli.me/blog/2020/elf-relocations/
- More ELF relocations - https://fasterthanli.me/blog/2020/more-elf-relocations/
Moving code around - Thiago Macieira
- http://blog.qt.io/blog/2010/12/04/moving-code-around/
- http://blog.qt.io/blog/2010/12/05/moving-code-around-more-easily/
Oracle Solaris 11.1 Linker and Libraries Guide
- Relocation Processing
  - https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E26502_01/html/E26507/chapter3-29.html
- Relocation Sections
  - https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23824_01/html/819-0690/chapter6-54839.html
Relocations in ELF Toolchains - Palmer Dabbelt
- https://www.sifive.com/blog/2017/08/21/all-aboard-part-2-relocations/
Relocations: fantastic symbols, but where to find them? - Siddhesh Poyarekar
- https://siddhesh.in/posts/relocations-fantastic-symbols-but-where-to-find-them.html
Resolving ELF Relocation Name / Symbols - Chris Rohlf
- https://em386.blogspot.com/2006/10/resolving-elf-relocation-name-symbols.html

Readings: Security

An Evil Copy: How the Loader Betrays You
- Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) 2017
- Xinyang Ge, Mathias Payer, Trent Jaeger
- https://nebelwelt.net/publications/files/17NDSS.pdf
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/evil-copy-loader-betrays/
Breaking the links: Exploiting the linker
- 2011; Tim Brown
- https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/102814/Breaking-The-Links-Exploiting-The-Linker.html
- paper: https://dl.packetstormsecurity.net/papers/general/BTL.pdf
- slides: https://labs.portcullis.co.uk/download/BTLCC.pdf
Dynamic Loader Oriented Programming on Linux
- Reversing and Offensive-oriented Trends Symposium (ROOTS) 2017
- Julian Kirsch, Bruno Bierbaumer, Thomas Kittel, and Claudia Eckert
- https://kirschju.re/projects/static/kirsch-roots-2017-paper.pdf
- https://github.com/kirschju/wiedergaenger
Types for the Chain of Trust: No (loader) write left behind
- 2018 PhD dissertation; Rebecca .bx Shapiro
- http://typedregions.com/
- Dissertation: http://typedregions.com/main.pdf
- Defense slides: http://typedregions.com/defense-slides.pdf

Readings: Shared Libraries

Fun with weak dynamic linking
- https://glandium.org/blog/?p=2764
How To Write Shared Libraries - Ulrich Drepper
- https://www.akkadia.org/drepper/dsohowto.pdf
Inlining — shared libraries are special
- https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2016/11/inlining-shared-libraries-are-special.html
PLT and GOT - the key to code sharing and dynamic libraries
- https://www.technovelty.org/linux/plt-and-got-the-key-to-code-sharing-and-dynamic-libraries.html
Shared Libraries: Understanding Dynamic Loading
- http://amir.rachum.com/blog/2016/09/17/shared-libraries/
Software Multiplexing: Share Your Libraries and Statically Link Them Too
- SPLASH 2018 OOPSLA
- Will Dietz, Vikram Adve
- https://2018.splashcon.org/event/splash-2018-oopsla-software-multiplexing-share-your-libraries-and-statically-link-them-too
- https://publish.illinois.edu/allvm-project/
- https://github.com/allvm/allvm-tools

Software

GNU Linker Output Viewer & Editor
- https://github.com/JonTheBurger/GLOVE
ld-limiter: Limit number of parallel link jobs
- https://github.com/yugr/ld-limiter
libdlbind: Dynamic creation and update of ELF files, or: an allocator for JIT compilers
- an extension to System V-style dynamic loaders to allow dynamic allocation of objects and dynamic binding of symbols
- https://github.com/stephenrkell/libdlbind
linkermapviz
- Interactive visualization of GNU ld’s linker map with a tree map.
- https://github.com/PromyLOPh/linkermapviz
linksem: Semantic model for aspects of ELF static linking and DWARF debug information
- https://github.com/rems-project/linksem
ShlibVisibilityChecker: Tool for locating internal symbols unnecessarily exported from shared libraries
- https://github.com/yugr/ShlibVisibilityChecker

Software: Linkers

ld - the GNU linker
- https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs/ld/
LLD - The LLVM Linker
- https://lld.llvm.org/

Software: OS: macOS

ld64: Instructions on how to build the ld64 linker on macOS
- https://github.com/dmaclach/ld64
[lld] Initial commit for new Mach-O backend
- https://reviews.llvm.org/D75382
macdylibbundler: Utility to ease bundling libraries into executables for OSX
- https://github.com/auriamg/macdylibbundler
zld: A faster version of Apple's linker
- https://github.com/michaeleisel/zld

Software: OS: Linux

dlinject.py: Inject a shared library (i.e. arbitrary code) into a live linux process, without ptrace
- https://github.com/DavidBuchanan314/dlinject
Faulty.lib: Dynamic linker for compressed libraries, with on-demand decompression (ELF Linux systems)
- https://github.com/glandium/faulty.lib
Implib.so: POSIX equivalent of Windows DLL import libraries
- https://github.com/yugr/Implib.so
libosuction: A tool for stripping dynamic libraries of unneeded symbols
- https://github.com/ispras/libosuction
- System-Wide Elimination of Unreferenced Code and Data in Dynamically Linked Programs
  - Ivannikov ISPRAS Open Conference (ISPRAS) 2017
  - V. Ivanishin, E. Kudryashov, A. Monakov, D. Melnik, J. Lee
  - https://doi.org/10.1109/ISPRAS.2017.00007
libpreloadvaccine: Whitelisting LD_PRELOAD libraries using LD_AUDIT
- https://github.com/ForensicITGuy/libpreloadvaccine
- Whitelisting LD_PRELOAD for Fun and No Profit
  - Shmoocon 2020; Tony Lambert
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM9Y2Sky6S0
  - https://speakerdeck.com/forensicitguy/whitelisting-ld-preload-for-fun-and-no-profit
libprocesshider: Hide a process under Linux using the ld preloader
- https://github.com/gianlucaborello/libprocesshider
- https://sysdig.com/blog/hiding-linux-processes-for-fun-and-profit/

Talks

Talks: 2019

Dynamic Linking On GNU/Linux
- emBO++ 2019; Florian Sowade
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2r5JhVDddw
- https://www.slideshare.net/FlorianSowade/dynamic-linking-on-gnulinux/
Pardon the Interposition—Modifying and Improving Software Behavior with Interposers
- USENIX LISA 2019; Danny Chen
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa19/presentation/chen
The ACM-NVIDIA Compiler summer school lectures (2019)
- https://nptel.ac.in/courses/128/106/128106009/
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPeEbErKGwN15rF-BnlngobapgIRZbAK4
- Program Execution Environment
  - part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf4JnUcJxSQ
  - part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3DnPTUunZk
  - part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h__sj8IfONg
  - part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzYXrwxu6YM
  - part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_LK7nOSlbM
  - part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzAwzTkbMDw
  - part 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWU5Av6YpEw
  - part 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd4NaS0_7Tc
What makes LLD so fast?
- FOSDEM 2019; Peter Smith
- https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/llvm_lld/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeHhveHHzII

Talks: 2018

Behind the Scenes of the Xcode Build Process
- WWDC 2018; Jake Petroules, Jürgen Ributzka, Devin Coughlin, Louis Gerbarg
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/415/
The Bits Between the Bits: How We Get to main()
- CppCon 2018; Matt Godbolt
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOfucXtyEsU
- Slides: https://mattgodbolt.github.io/cppcon-bits-between-bits/

Talks: 2017

App Startup Time: Past, Present, and Future
- WWDC 2017; Louis Gerbarg
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/413/
- "Learn about the dyld dynamic linker used on Apple platforms, how it's changed over the years, and where it's headed next. Find out how improved tooling makes it easier to optimize your app's launch time, and see how new changes coming in dyld will bring even further launch time improvements."
LLD from a user's perspective
My Little Object File: How Linkers Implement C++
- CppCon 2017; Michael Spencer
- https://youtu.be/a5L66zguFe4
The Missing Link: The Curious symbiosis between C++ and the Linker
- C++ Meetup Sydney hosted by IMC; December 6, 2017
- Dave Gittins
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twNoIhGKIoo

Talks: 2016

New LLD linker for ELF: A high performance linker from the LLVM project
- 2016 EuroLLVM Developers' Meeting; R. Ueyama
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYCRqjVa6l4
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2016-03/Presentations/EuroLLVM%202016-%20New%20LLD%20linker%20for%20ELF.pdf
Optimizing App Startup Time: Linkers, loaders, and you
- WWDC 2016; Nick Kledzik, Louis Gerbarg
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/406/
- "Launching an App is a complicated and subtle process and the ramifications on launch times of different App design patterns are often non-obvious. Come learn what happens in the time between when an App begins launching and when the main() function gets control and how that time relates to the code and structure of your App. Learn about the inner details of the dynamic loader, dyld, and best practices for structuring your code to perform at its best from the very start."

Tags: native reading windows macos linux

Last modified 14 January 2022

Executables linking and loading reading

A collection of links and resources on the linking and loading of executables.

Readings

Readings: Blogs

Readings: Books

Readings: Linker Scripts

Readings: LTO

Readings: OS: POSIX

macOS

Linux

Solaris

Readings: OS: Windows

Readings: Relocations

Readings: Security

Readings: Shared Libraries

Software

Software: Linkers

Software: OS: macOS

Software: OS: Linux

Talks

Talks: 2019

Talks: 2018

Talks: 2017

Talks: 2016