INTRO

Linuxemu is a program that can execute Linux/i386 ELF binaries on
Plan9.  It was started by Russ Cox and development was continued by
me.  Its opensource, I dont care what you are doing with it, but maybe
Russ does, i don't know :-)

If you found some bugs or have some other improvements/ideas send a
email to:

cinap_lenrek AT gmx DOT de


SOURCE

linuxemu is available on sources. On Plan9 do:

% 9fs sources
% cp /n/sources/contrib/cinap_lenrek/linuxemu3.tgz .

Another source is my server on the web:

% hget http://9hal.ath.cx/usr/cinap_lenrek/linuxemu3.tgz >linuxemu3.tgz


DOCUMENTATION

documentation is provided in the doc directory:

doc/linuxemu.txt
doc/todo.txt


COMPILE

% tar xzf linuxemu3.tgz
% cd linuxemu3
% mk


INSTALL

% mk install


BOOTSTRAP

You need a linux rootfilesystem packed in a tarball. Go!
get some linux rootfs:

http://9hal.ath.cx/usr/cinap_lenrek/mroot.tbz
http://9hal.ath.cx/usr/cinap_lenrek/mroot-linuxemu.tbz

the -linuxemu version contains no symlinks and can be extracted with
plain plan9 tools bunzip/tar so you can skip the BOOTSTRAP section.
:-)

You can create your own with debootstrap on debian linux...  or help
me write a installer that unpacks and installs slackware on plan9...
In any case, linuxemu is not hardwared to any linux distribution!

Extract your linux rootfilesystem with the static linked gnutar from
the bootstrap directory.  (This will create all the fake symlinks for
you)

% 8.out bootstrap/tar xf /tmp/mroot.tar 


RUNNING

Then you can use the linux script to "chroot" into your linux
rootfs. the linux script is neccesary because for linux programs
to run shared libraries from your linux root have to appear at /lib
and /usr/lib and configuration files are expected to be in /etc.
the script will build a private namespace and bind the linuxroot
over the plan9 root. the original plan9 namespace is mounted to /9.

% linux -r ./mroot /bin/bash -i

if you omit the -r option, the linuxroot defaults to /sys/lib/linux. you
may put your linux root there or add a bind to your $home/lib/profile.

You should change /etc/resolv.conf to match your network nameserver
setup.  Also, you may want to edit /etc/apt/sources.list to change the
debian mirror.


DEBUGGING

If linuxemu crashes, use acid to figure out whats going on:

% mk acid
% acid -l linuxemu.acid <pid>

then you can issue the following commands:

ustk()				dump a (userspace) stacktrace for the current thread
umem(Current())		dump the memory mappings
ufds(Current())			dump the filedescriptor table
utrace(Current())		dump the internal tracebuffer (enabled by -d option)

use xasm()/xcasm() for disassembly for linux code.

You can also enable full trace logging:

% linux -r ./mroot -dd /bin/bash -i >[2]/tmp/linuxemu.log

This slows linuxemu down.  In case of race conditions, it often
happens that the bug disapears when doing full trace logging!


NPTL/thread-local storage

If you get one of these errors:

"cannot set up thread-local storage: cannot set up LDT for thread-local storage"

this is glibc/libpthread complaining!  the problem is the following:
glibc on i386 decided at some point to use the extra segment registers
GS and FS as an indirection pointer for thread local storage.  the
operating system kernel therfor must have a mechanism to let userspace
change descriptor table entries and swap them in/out on context
switch.

to make it work here are several options:

1) recompile and link the program with a pre NPTL version of glibc.

2) on some distributions, a non-tls version of libc/libpthread is available.
in my debian mroot, the NPTL version is in /lib/tls, the older version
is in /lib. by renaming /lib/tls to /lib/_tls_disabled_ the loader will
use the non-tls version.

3) i made a kernel patch that adds support for per process descriptors to
plan9:
/n/sources/contrib/cinap_lenrek/segdescpatch
http://9hal.ath.cx/usr/cinap_lenrek/segdescpatch.tgz
it will add the files gdt and ldt to devarch (#P).