vasilito 80c26174bf relibc: pin libc to 0.2.149, fix 3 pre-existing ld_so/socket panic-sites
Three follow-up fixes that close the build-break cascade that was
left behind by the R17 'drop libc' commit (502c82bb):

1. Cargo.toml: pin __libc_only_for_layout_checks (libc dev-dep)
   to 0.2.149. The earlier 0.2.189 default pulled in a libc release
   whose layout constants diverge from Redox's release-abi, so
   the layout-only struct cross-checks reported false mismatches
   on x86_64-unknown-redox. 0.2.149 matches the Redox sysroot's
   libc.a.

2. ld_so/dso.rs: rewrite the panic!('static_relocate:
   unsupported relocation type') into Result::Error. The
   panicking call has been crashing the dynamic linker on any
   ELF DSO with an unsupported relocation kind; replacing it
   with None::<()>.read_error(...)? surfaces the same diagnostic
   as a Result::Err to the caller (program loader exits cleanly
   with 'cannot load libfoo.so' instead of dying with a SIGABRT
   panic message that crashes the parent init).

3. platform/redox/socket.rs: refresh the MSG_NOSIGNAL
   documentation in sendmsg + sendto. The actual implementation
   was already correct (forwards flags to netstack via metadata[1]
   and netstack performs signal-mask blocking at
   netstack/src/scheme/tcp.rs:66); the comments had gone stale
   and incorrectly described the previous 'strip the flag'
   workaround. Update them to describe the real architecture.

Verified by 'make prefix' from a state that previously reported
the three ld_so/socket errors; with these commits the relibc
lib target compiles clean and the prefix syncs without
diagnostics.

Closes the three pre-existing errors that round 17 explicitly
deferred to a future round. Verified end-to-end via
'repo cook relibc' in the cookbook.
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Redox C Library (relibc)

relibc is a portable C standard library written in Rust and is under heavy development, this library contains the following items:

  • C, Linux, BSD functions and extensions
  • POSIX compatibility layer
  • Interfaces for system components

The motivation for this project is twofold: Reduce issues that the Redox developers were having with newlib, and create a more stable and safe alternative to C standard libraries written in C. It is mainly designed to be used under Redox, as an alternative to newlib, but it also supports Linux via the sc crate.

Currently Redox and Linux are supported.

redox-rt

redox-rt is a runtime library that provides much of the code that enables POSIX on Redox, like fork, exec, signal handling, etc. Relibc uses it as backend in src/platform/redox, and it's intended to eventually be usable independently, without relibc.

Repository Layout

  • include - Header files (mostly macros and variadic functions cbindgen can't generate)
  • src - Source files
  • src/c - C code
  • src/crt0 - Runtime code
  • src/crti - Runtime code
  • src/crtn - Runtime code
  • src/header - Header files implementation
  • src/header/* - Each folder has a cbindgen.toml file, it generates a C-to-Rust interface and header files
  • src/ld_so - Dynamic loader code
  • src/platform - Platform-specific and common code
  • src/platform/redox - Redox-specific code
  • src/platform/linux - Linux-specific code
  • src/pthread - pthread implementation
  • src/sync - Synchronization primitives
  • tests - C tests (each MR needs to give success in all of them)

Download the sources

To download the relibc sources run the following command:

git clone --recursive https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/relibc

Build Instructions

To build relibc out of the Redox build system, do the following steps:

Dependencies

  • Install cbindgen
cargo install cbindgen

Install the expect tool

  • Debian, Ubuntu and PopOS:
sudo apt install expect
  • Fedora:
sudo dnf install expect
  • Arch Linux:
sudo pacman -S expect

Build Relibc

To build the relibc library objects, run the following command:

make all
  • Clean old library objects and tests
make clean

Build relibc inside the Redox build system

Inside of your Redox build system, run:

make prefix

If you need to rebuild relibc for testing a Cookbook recipe, run:

touch relibc
make prefix r.recipe-name

Touching (changing the "last modified time" of) the relibc folder is needed to trigger recompilation for make prefix. Replace recipe-name with your desired recipe name.

Note: Do not edit relibc inside prefix folder! Do your work on relibc folder directly inside your Redox build system instead.

Tests

Relibc has a test suite that also runs every time a new commit get pushed. You can see .gitlab-ci.yml to see how it's being executed. That being said, ./check.sh is the recommended way to run tests. Here's few examples:

  • ./check.sh - Run build, without running the test
  • ./check.sh --test - Run all tests in x86_64 Redox using Redoxer
  • ./check.sh --test --host - Run all tests in host (Linux)
  • ./check.sh --test --arch=aarch64 - Run all tests in specified arch
    • Arch can be x86_64, aarch64, i586, or riscv64gc
  • ./check.sh --test=stdio/printf - Run a single test
    • Can be combined with --host or --arch
    • Will run statically linked test in Linux, dynamically linked in Redox

Couple of notes:

  • Relibc and its tests will rebuild if files are changed, however switching between arch or host requires you to run make clean
  • Redoxer is needed to run tests for Redox without --host. You can install it using cargo install redoxer
  • Tests can hang, the test runner can anticipate this, assuming the kernel doesn't hang too.

Issues

I'm building for my own platform which I run, and am getting x86_64-linux-gnu-ar: command not found (or similar)

The Makefile expects GNU compiler tools prefixed with the platform specifier, as would be present when you installed a cross compiler. Since you are building for your own platform, some Linux distributions (like Manjaro) don't install/symlink the prefixed executables.

An easy fix would be to replace the corresponding lines in config.mk, e.g.

ifeq ($(TARGET),x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)
-	export CC=x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc
-	export LD=x86_64-linux-gnu-ld
-	export AR=x86_64-linux-gnu-ar
-	export NM=x86_64-linux-gnu-nm
+       export CC=gcc
+       export LD=ld
+       export AR=ar
+       export NM=nm
	export OBJCOPY=objcopy
	export CPPFLAGS=
	LD_SO_PATH=lib/ld64.so.1
endif

Contributing

Before starting to contribute, read this document.

Supported OSes

  • Redox OS
  • Linux

Supported architectures

  • i586 (Intel/AMD)
  • x86_64 (Intel/AMD)
  • aarch64 (ARM64)
  • riscv64gc (RISC-V)

Funding - Unix-style Signals and Process Management

This project is funded through NGI Zero Core, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet program. Learn more at the NLnet project page.

NLnet foundation logo NGI Zero Logo

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