Re: [davidm@napali.hpl.hp.com: readelf question]

[David Mosberger <davidm@napali.hpl.hp.com>]

>>>>> On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 15:26:35 -0400, Andrew Cagney <ac131313@redhat.com> said:

  Andrew> David, I'm guessing that ``gate page'' is vsyscall page?

Yes.  To be precise: on ia64, the gate page serves a similar purpose
as on x86 the vsyscall page.  (ia64 linux doesn't actually support
virtual syscalls; instead, there are lightweight syscalls, which have
similar performance but aren't restricted to user-mode execution).

  Andrew> Whats the Linux kernel status on this one?

They're in the 2.5 tree now (both on x86 and ia64).

  Andrew> Last I heard was a kernel patch to make auxv info available
  Andrew> in the core file, and via the /proc and ptrace interfaces.

Yes: auxv, core, and ptrace are there.  I don't think /proc support is
there.  Not sure if Roland is planning to do something about that.

  Andrew> Thing is, if that's done, those extra memory sections can go
  Andrew> back to being extra memory sections (and everything becomes
  Andrew> much simpler).

I don't have much of a preference myself.  I'm sure Roland has thought
much more about the user-level parts of the support than I have
(though I do like the idea of being able to get symbol and library
info for the kernel DSO(s); not sure how you'd do that with plain
memory sections).

	--david