projects / elfdbg / .git / blame
| Commit | Line | Data |
|---|---|---|
| f4b470b9 | 1 | # elfdbg |
| 1960d10e | 2 | |
| 6c66a1df SB |
3 | [](https://cirrus-ci.com/github/sbz/elfdbg) |
| 4 | [](https://cirrus-ci.com/github/sbz/elfdbg) | |
| 12f4d6f9 | 5 | |
| 1960d10e SB |
6 | ## About |
| 7 | ||
| 8 | This project _elfdbg_ is a utility program to quickly identify if an ELF binary | |
| 9 | is built with [debug sections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debug_symbol) | |
| 10 | ||
| 11 | Debug sections in ELF binary usually are generated using the `-g` flag with the | |
| 12 | compiler. The compiler adds the new `.debug_*` sections in the binary. | |
| 13 | ||
| 14 | The program is looking for the existence of sections with name starting with | |
| 15 | `.debug_` to determine if the binary has been built with debug information. | |
| 16 | ||
| 17 | The [ELF][ELF] format is a well-known standard. ELF TIS reference specification | |
| 18 | is available [here][spec] and as a FreeBSD [elf(5)][man] man page. | |
| 19 | ||
| 99eb933a SB |
20 | ## Usage |
| 21 | ||
| 22 | This is intented to be used in shell script in order to avoid using file(1) and | |
| 23 | parsing the output like below: | |
| 24 | ||
| 25 | ```shell | |
| 26 | `file /path/to/binary | awk '/debug_info/{print $2}'` != 'ELF' | |
| 27 | ``` | |
| 28 | ||
| 29 | To determine if binary has been built with debug, use the following: | |
| 30 | ||
| 31 | ```shell | |
| 32 | if elfdbg -q /path/to/binary; then | |
| 33 | echo "No symbols" | |
| 34 | else | |
| 35 | echo "Binary with debug symbols" | |
| 36 | fi | |
| 37 | ``` | |
| 38 | ||
| 39 | On FreeBSD, you can easily identify the binary packages with missing debug | |
| 40 | using similar one-liner: | |
| 41 | ||
| 42 | ```shell | |
| 43 | pkg info -a -l|grep local/bin/|while read a; do echo $a: `elfdbg $a`; done | |
| 44 | ``` | |
| 45 | ||
| 1960d10e SB |
46 | ## Build and install |
| 47 | ||
| 418b72b3 | 48 | The Makefile use the standard BSD Makefile to build the program. |
| 1960d10e SB |
49 | |
| 50 | ``` | |
| 51 | make && sudo make install | |
| 52 | ``` | |
| 53 | ||
| 9bb8dccb | 54 | If your on Linux, use `make` also build using the GNU Makefile. |
| 418b72b3 | 55 | |
| 1960d10e SB |
56 | ## Test |
| 57 | ||
| 58 | The tests cases are implemented using the FreeBSD test suite framework with | |
| 59 | [kyua](https://github.com/jmmv/kyua) and [Kyuafile](./tests/Kyuafile). | |
| 60 | ||
| 61 | ``` | |
| 62 | make test | |
| 63 | ``` | |
| 64 | ||
| 65 | ## History | |
| 66 | ||
| 67 | * _2015_ I wrote this using libelf elf(3) and gelf(3) API | |
| 68 | [f4b470b](https://github.com/sbz/elfdbg/commit/f4b470b) | |
| 69 | * _2020_ I rewrote this without relying on libelf API | |
| 99eb933a | 70 | [1960d10](https://github.com/sbz/elfdbg/commit/1960d10) |
| 1960d10e SB |
71 | |
| 72 | [ELF]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format | |
| 73 | [spec]: http://refspecs.linuxbase.org/elf/elf.pdf | |
| 74 | [man]: https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=elf&sektion=5 |