Porting JonesForth to macOS v10.15 (Catalina) - macos

I'm trying to make JonesForth run on a recent MacBook out of the box, just using Mac tools.
I started to convert everything 64 bits and attend to the Mac assembler syntax.
I got things to assemble, but I immediately run into a curious segmentation fault:
/* NEXT macro. */
.macro NEXT
lodsq
jmpq *(%rax)
.endm
...
/* Assembler entry point. */
.text
.globl start
.balign 16
start:
cld
mov %rsp,var_SZ(%rip) // Save the initial data stack pointer in FORTH variable S0.
mov return_stack_top(%rip),%rbp // Initialise the return stack.
//call set_up_data_segment
mov cold_start(%rip),%rsi // Initialise interpreter.
NEXT // Run interpreter!
.const
cold_start: // High-level code without a codeword.
.quad QUIT
QUIT is defined like this via macro defword:
.macro defword
.const_data
.balign 8
.globl name_$3
name_$3 :
.quad $4 // Link
.byte $2+$1 // Flags + length byte
.ascii $0 // The name
.balign 8 // Padding to next four-byte boundary
.globl $3
$3 :
.quad DOCOL // Codeword - the interpreter
// list of word pointers follow
.endm
// QUIT must not return (ie. must not call EXIT).
defword "QUIT",4,,QUIT,name_TELL
.quad RZ,RSPSTORE // R0 RSP!, clear the return stack
.quad INTERPRET // Interpret the next word
.quad BRANCH,-16 // And loop (indefinitely)
...more code
When I run this, I get a segmentation fault the first time in the NEXT macro:
(lldb) run
There is a running process, kill it and restart?: [Y/n] y
Process 83000 exited with status = 9 (0x00000009)
Process 83042 launched: '/Users/klapauciusisgreat/jonesforth64/jonesforth' (x86_64)
Process 83042 stopped
* thread #1, stop reason = EXC_BAD_ACCESS (code=EXC_I386_GPFLT)
frame #0: 0x0000000100000698 jonesforth`start + 24
jonesforth`start:
-> 0x100000698 <+24>: jmpq *(%rax)
0x10000069a <+26>: nopw (%rax,%rax)
jonesforth`code_DROP:
0x1000006a0 <+0>: popq %rax
0x1000006a1 <+1>: lodsq (%rsi), %rax
Target 0: (jonesforth) stopped.
rax does point to what I think is the dereferenced address, DOCOL:
(lldb) register read
General Purpose Registers:
rax = 0x0000000100000660 jonesforth`DOCOL
So one mystery is:
Why does RAX point to DOCOL instead of QUIT? My guess is that the instruction was halfway executed and the result of the indirection was stored in rax. What are some good pointers to documentation?
Why the segmentation fault?
I commented out the original segment setup code in the original that called brk to set up a data segment. Another [implementation] also did not call it at all, so I thought I could as well ignore this. Is there any magic on how to set up segment permissions with syscalls in a 64-bit binary on Catalina? The make command is pretty much the standard JonesForth one:
jonesforth: jonesforth.S
gcc -nostdlib -g -static $(BUILD_ID_NONE) -o $# $<
P.S.: Yes, I can get JonesForth to work perfectly in Docker images, but that's besides the point. I really want it to work in 64 bit on Catalina, out of the box.

The original code had something like
mov $cold_start,%rsi
And the Apple assembler complains about not being able to use 32 immediate addressing in 64-bit binaries.
So I tried
mov $cold_start(%rip),%rsi
but that also doesn't work.
So I tried
mov cold_start(%rip),%rsi
which assembles, but of course it dereferences cold start, which is not something I need.
The correct way of doing this is apparently
lea cold_start(%rip),%rsi
This seems to work as intended.

Related

Why does this assembly code throw a seg fault?

The book Assembly Language Step by Step provides the following code as a sandbox:
section .data
section .text
global _start
_start:
nop
//insert sandbox code here
nop
Any example that I include in the space for sandbox is creating a segmentation fault. For example, adding this code:
mov ax, 067FEh
mov bx, ax
mov cl, bh
mov ch, bl
Then compiling with:
nasm -f macho sandbox.asm
ld -o sandbox -e _start sandbox.o
creates a seg fault when I run it on my OS/X. Is there a way to get more information about what's causing the segmentation fault?
The problem you have is that you have created a program that runs past the end of the code that you have written.
When your program executes, the loader will end up issuing a jmp to your _start. Your code then runs, but you do not have anything to return to the OS at the end, so it will simply continue running, executing whatever bytes happen to be in RAM after your code.
The simplest fix would be to properly exit the code. For example:
mov eax, 0x1 ; system call number for exit
sub esp, 4 ; OS X system calls needs "extra space" on stack
int 0x80
Since you are not generating any actual output, you would need to step through with a debugger to see what's going on. After compiling you could use lldb to step through.
lldb ./sandbox
image dump sections
Make note of the address listed that is of type code for your executable (not dyld). It will likely be 0x0000000000001fe6. Continuing within lldb:
b s -a 0x0000000000001fe6
run
register read
step
register read
step
register read
At this point you should be past the NOPs and see things changing in registers. Have fun!

x86 asm printf causes segfault when using intel syntax (gcc)

I'm just starting to learn x86 assembly, and I am a bit confused as to why this little example doesn't work. All I want to do is to print the content of the eax register as a decimal value. This is my code in AT&T Syntax:
.data
intout:
.string "%d\n"
.text
.globl main
main:
movl $666, %eax
pushl %eax
pushl $intout
call printf
movl $1, %eax
int $0x80
Which I compile and run as follows:
gcc -m32 -o hello helloworld.S
./hello
This works as excepted (Printing 666 to the console). On a little side note, I would like to point out that I don't understand what exactly "movl $1, %eax" and "int $0x80" are supposed to accomplish here. I'm also a not sure what "pushl $intout" does. Why is my output composed out of two separate stack entries? And what exactly does the .string macro do?
These are only side questions however, since my real problem is that I can't find a way to make this run using the much easier to read/write/comprehend Intel syntax.
Here is the code:
.intel_syntax noprefix
.data
intout:
.string "%d\n"
.text
.globl main
main:
mov eax, 666
push eax
push intout
call printf
mov eax, 1
int 0x80
Running this same as above, it just prints "Segmentation fault".
What am I doing wrong?
You need to use push OFFSET intout otherwise the 32-bit value stored at intout will be pushed on the stack, rather than its address.
intout is just a label, which is basically a name assigned to an address in your program. The .string "%d\n" directive that follows it defines a sequence of bytes in your program, both allocating memory and initializing that memory. Specifically it allocates 4 bytes in the .data section and initializes them with the characters '%', 'd', '\n', and '\0'. Since the label intout is defined just before the .string line it has the address of the first byte in the string.
The line push intout results in a instruction that reads the 4 bytes starting at the address of referred to by intout and pushes them on to the stack (specifically it subtracts 4 from ESP and then copies them to the 4 bytes now pointed to by ESP.) The line push $intout (or push OFFSET intout) pushes the 4 bytes that make up the 32-bit address of intout on the stack.
This means that the line push intout pushes a meaningless value on to the stack. The function printf ends up interpreting it as a pointer, an address where the format string is supposed to be stored, but since it doesn't point to valid location in memory your program crashes.

Qemu debugging suddenly produces huge number of random instructions

I'm trying to make a very simple boot program, but I'm having problems debugging it. I'm using QEMU and connecting with GDB like this:
(gdb) set architecture i8086
(gdb) target remote localhost:1234
(gdb) break *0x7C00
(gdb) layout asm
(gdb) continue
...which works great, and I can get to the first few instructions of my code. However, as soon as I si or ni at one particular int instruction, this pattern appears in the GDB assembly view.
0x8669 add %al,(%bx,%si) │
0x866b add %al,(%bx,%si) │
0x866d add %al,(%bx,%si) │
<ad nauseam>
This doesn't appear to stop, or return to where I expect it to. Here's my assembly code:
stage1.S
#include "stage1.h"
.text
.code16
.org STAGE1_START
.globl _start
_start:
JMP main
NOP
write:
LODSB
OR %al, %al
JZ write_exit
MOV $0xE, %ah
MOV $0x9, %bx
INT $0x10
JMP write
write_exit:
RET
video_setup:
MOV $0x0, %ah
MOV $0x3, %al
INT $0x10 /* This causes the problem. */
RET
LoadMsg: .asciz "Loading second stage..."
BootDrive: .byte
main:
MOV %dl, STAGE1_ABS_POS(BootDrive)
CALL video_setup
LEA STAGE1_ABS_POS(LoadMsg), %si
CALL write
HLT
/* Fill file to 512 bytes, regardless. */
.fill STAGE1_BOOTLOADER_SIZE - (. - _start)
/* BIOS magic. */
.word STAGE1_BOOTLOADER_SIG
stage1.h
#ifndef STAGE_1_H
#define STAGE_1_H
#define STAGE1_START 0x0
#define STAGE1_BOOTLOADER_OFFSET 0x7C00
#define STAGE1_BOOTLOADER_SIG 0xAA55
#define STAGE1_BOOTLOADER_SIZE 0x1FE
#define STAGE1_ABS_POS(X) (X-_start+STAGE1_BOOTLOADER_OFFSET)
#endif
I know the code doesn't jump somewhere randomly in memory, as the program works as it should when I run it without debugging options in QEMU.
What am I doing wrong? Criticism of my code generally is also much appreciated.
I don't know precisely why, but it turns out that interrupts end up confusing the debugger or QEMU's debug mode (or I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what).
Anyway, to work around this, I simply place breakpoints at the next instruction I wish to debug, then continue before an interrupt instruction.
Thanks for the help, commenters. :-)

64 bit assembly on Mac OS X runtime errors: "dyld: no writable segment" and "Trace/BPT trap"

When attempting to run the following assembly program:
.globl start
start:
pushq $0x0
movq $0x1, %rax
subq $0x8, %rsp
int $0x80
I am receiving the following errors:
dyld: no writable segment
Trace/BPT trap
Any idea what could be causing this? The analogous program in 32 bit assembly runs fine.
OSX now requires your executable to have a writable data segment with content, so it can relocate and link your code dynamically. Dunno why, maybe security reasons, maybe due to the new RIP register. If you put a .data segment in there (with some bogus content), you'll avoid the "no writable segment" error. IMO this is an ld bug.
Regarding the 64-bit syscall, you can do it 2 ways. GCC-style, which uses the _syscall PROCEDURE from libSystem.dylib, or raw. Raw uses the syscall instruction, not the int 0x80 trap. int 0x80 is an illegal instruction in 64-bit.
The "GCC method" will take care of categorizing the syscall for you, so you can use the same 32-bit numbers found in sys/syscall.h. But if you go raw, you'll have to classify what kind of syscall it is by ORing it with a type id. Here is an example of both. Note that the calling convention is different! (this is NASM syntax because gas annoys me)
; assemble with
; nasm -f macho64 -o syscall64.o syscall64.asm && ld -lc -ldylib1.o -e start -o syscall64 syscall64.o
extern _syscall
global start
[section .text align=16]
start:
; do it gcc-style
mov rdi, 0x4 ; sys_write
mov rsi, 1 ; file descriptor
mov rdx, hello
mov rcx, size
call _syscall ; we're calling a procedure, not trapping.
;now let's do it raw
mov rax, 0x2000001 ; SYS_exit = 1 and is type 2 (bsd call)
mov rdi, 0 ; Exit success = 0
syscall ; faster than int 0x80, and legal!
[section .data align=16]
hello: db "hello 64-bit syscall!", 0x0a
size: equ $-hello
check out http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-792.13.8/osfmk/mach/i386/syscall_sw.h for more info on how a syscall is typed.
The system call interface is different between 32 and 64 bits. Firstly, int $80 is replaced by syscall and the system call numbers are different. You will need to look up documentation for a 64-bit version of your system call. Here is an example of what a 64-bit program may look like.

Replacing the Timer Interrupt Handler in DOS With GNU (GCC and GAS)

As the title suggests, I'm trying to replace the existing handler for the Timer interrupt in DOS with one of my own.
After searching far and wide for a variety of solutions, I found some Assembly code which does exactly that, and I have even managed to compile and test it, and saw that it works.
The problem now is that the code I found (see further down) is written for TASM, and I wish to use it with some C code that I'm writing, which I compile with GCC.
I've tried to convert the code into GAS (GNU Assembler) syntax, but I can't seem to get it to work (I mostly experienced crashes of one kind or another during my numerous attempts).
I would very much appreciate it if anyone could enlighten me with a solution (be it a working version of the assembly code that GAS can compile, a way to do the entire thing in C -- the "interrupt" keyword doesn't work, and neither does "attribute ((interrupt))" and the like -- or even a way to bridge between TASM and GCC).
I should also probably mention that the DOS system I'm using is actually an OracleVM VirtualBox Manager running a virtual machine with FreeDOS installed on it, and that the compiler I'm using for C is the GCC that is provided with the DJGPP development environment.
This is the working TASM code I have (taken from http://www.programmersheaven.com/mb/x86_asm/276128/276185/re-redefining-the-timer-interrupt-handler/):
_stack SEGMENT STACK
db 32 DUP ('STACK ')
_stack ENDS
_code SEGMENT PARA 'CODE'
ASSUME CS:_code, SS:_stack
Lstart LABEL NEAR
JMP Linstall
;+---------------------------------------------
;| My New 1Ch INT
;| Print 'random' chars to the first video line
new_Int PROC FAR
DEC BYTE PTR CS:Counter
CLD
PUSH AX
MOV AX, 0B800h
MOV ES,AX ; ES = b800h
MOV DI,000h ; DI = 0000h
MOV AH,CS:Counter ; set foreground and background color
MOV AL,CS:Counter ; set char
MOV CX,80
REP STOSW ; From AX to ES:DI
POP AX
STI
IRET
new_Int ENDP
Counter DB 0Fh
;+-----------------------------------------
;| Store old INT and Install the new one
;|
Linstall LABEL NEAR
old_INT DD 00000000h
MOV AL,01Ch ;+-
MOV AH,35h ;| Save old_INT
INT 21h ;|
MOV WORD PTR [old_INT],BX
MOV WORD PTR [old_INT][2],ES
CLI ;+-
PUSH CS ;| Install
POP DS ;|
LEA DX,new_INT
MOV AL,1Ch
MOV AH,25h
INT 21h
MOV AH,0 ;+-
INT 16H ;| Wait for a keypress
;+-----------------------------------------
;| Disinstall and exit
CLI
PUSH DS
LDS DX,CS:[old_INT] ;+-
MOV AL,1Ch ;| Disinstall int
MOV AH,25h ;|
INT 21h ;|
POP DS
STI
MOV AL,0 ;+-
MOV AH,4Ch ;| Exit
INT 21h ;|
_code ENDS
END Lstart
It fully works on my machine. I start the program and see the entire first line of the console replaced by colorful characters that change all the time.
And this is my attempt to convert the above code into GAS syntax:
.file "ttv2.s"
# Define a variable for "randomizing" characters and colors
.globl _MyVar
.section .bss
_MyVar:
.space 1
.section .text
# Define a variable for storing the address of the current ISR
.globl _OldInt
.section .bss
.p2align 2
_OldInt:
.space 4
.section .text
# Program entry point
.text
.globl start
start:
jmp _Install
# This is the new Interrupt Service Routine that is going to be installed
.globl _NewInt
_NewInt:
movb _MyVar, %al
decb %al # Decrement our variable
movb %al, _MyVar
cld
pushw %ax
movw $0xB800, %ax
movw %ax, %es # ES = 0xB800
movw $0, %di # DI = 0
movb _MyVar, %ah # Set the foreground and background colors
movb _MyVar, %al # Set the charater to be displayed
movw $80, %cx # The screen is 80 characters wide
rep stosw # Start copying from AX to AS:DI
popw %ax
sti
iret
.globl _Install
_Install:
# Save old ISR address
movb $0x1C, %al # Set the code for the Timer interrupt
movb $0x35, %ah # 0x35 is the code for getting the current ISR
int $0x21 # 0x21 is the interrupt fot s/getting ISRs
movw %es, %dx #
shll $16, %edx # Save the address of the
movw %bx, %dx # old interrupt handler
movl %edx, _OldInt #
# Install the new ISR
cli
pushw %cs
popw %ds
lea _NewInt, %dx # Set the address of the ISR we're installing
movb $0x1C, %al # Set the code for the Timer interrupt
movb $0x25, %ah # 0x25 is the code for setting a new ISR
int $0x21 # 0x21 is the interrupt fot s/getting ISRs
# Wait for a key press
movl $0, %eax
int $0x16
.globl _Uninstall
_Uninstall:
cli
pushw %ds
lds %cs:_OldInt, %dx # Install the address of the old ISR
movb $0x1C, %al # Set the code for the Timer interrupt
movb $0x25, %ah # 0x25 is the code for setting a new ISR
int $0x21 # 0x21 is the interrupt fot s/getting ISRs
popw %ds
sti
.globl _End
_End:
# Exit
movb $0, %al
movb $0x4C, %ah # 0x4C is the code for program exit in DOS
int $0x21
.ident "GCC: (GNU) 4.5.2"
I compile my file (called "ttv2.s") with the following commands:
as -o ttv2.o ttv2.s
ld -o ttv2.exe ttv2.o
When I run the resulting EXE file (there are no warnings or errors during the assembly and linkage), the program crashes with the error "Exception 0D in ring 0" (and lots of register values).
The TASM version, however, works without a hitch!
So I'm guessing that there is something wrong either with the way I converted the code, or with the way I'm building the final EXE. Or both.
A bit of additional information, should it help in any way:
If I remove the installation commands (the int $0x21), there is no crash, and the program waits for me to hit a key and then exits.
If I keep the installation commands, but remove the wait-for-key command (the int $0x16), the program exits immediately, and there is no crash.
If I keep the installation commands, and replace the wait-for-key command with an active delay loop (a simple loop of 4 billion iterations), the program crashes the same way it did when the wait-for-key command was in place, but after a couple of seconds, rather than immediately.
In both cases with the crash (with the key press or the delay), the program crashes even if I remove just one of the two installation commands.
Thanks in advance for any and all assistance, and sorry for the lengthy post...
You probably need to specify .code16 so it builds the application for 16-bit real mode.
The fact that you're getting an error about rings means that you are for some reason not in 16-bit real mode (like DOS would be run), but rather are in some form of protected mode. So make sure that 1) you are compiling to 16-bit real mode for your assembly commands (i.e., the binary machine code is 16-bit opcodes, not 32-bit opcodes), and 2) that you are running in a 16-bit real mode setting when you attempt to run your EXE.
Secondly, note that in the TASM version, they have placed the Counter variable in the code segment, and are accessing the Counter via an offset from the current code-segment. You on the other-hand have placed your counter variable _MyVar in the BSS section. Depending on how the linker links your binary executable, that variable may not be accessible from your interrupt ... for instance, it may not be accessible within the 64Kb window of the current data segment when the interrupt is running. Therefore I would mirror what they did in the TASM version, and place your counter variable in the code-segment, and access it from the code-segment

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