From linux-man  Fri Jun 25 10:33:55 2021
From: Walter Harms <wharms () bfs ! de>
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2021 10:33:55 +0000
To: linux-man
Subject: AW: execve(2) man page: "absolute pathname" inconsistency
Message-Id: <750acf642c3e4e79b782e72d5914c89d () bfs ! de>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=linux-man&m=162461722022795

I guess there is a mixup between interpreter and  pathname.

All this is only vaild if the
flag is set to P (P - preserve-argv[0]) when you add a new
setting in  /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
(any way to get the current setting ?)

the original wording from the kernel says:

Legacy behavior of binfmt_misc is to overwrite the original argv[0] with th=
e full path to the binary. When this flag is included, binfmt_misc will add=
 an argument to the argument vector for this purpose, thus preserving the o=
riginal argv[0]. e.g. If your interp is set to /bin/foo and you run blah (w=
hich is in /usr/local/bin), then the kernel will execute /bin/foo with argv=
[] set to ["/bin/foo", "/usr/local/bin/blah", "blah"]. The interp has to be=
 aware of this so it can execute /usr/local/bin/blah with argv[] set to ["b=
lah"].

re,
 wh
________________________________________
Von: Nora Platiel <nplatiel@gmx.us>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 24. Juni 2021 22:42:08
An: mtk.manpages@gmail.com; alx.manpages@gmail.com
Cc: linux-man@vger.kernel.org
Betreff: execve(2) man page: "absolute pathname" inconsistency

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Hello,
I'm reporting a problem with the execve(2) man page (see the "absolute path=
name" part):

> If the pathname argument of execve() specifies an interpreter
> script, then interpreter will be invoked with the following
> arguments:
>
>     interpreter [optional-arg] pathname arg...
>
> where pathname is the absolute pathname of the file specified as
>                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> the first argument of execve(), and arg...  is the series of
> words pointed to by the argv argument of execve(), starting at
> argv[1].  Note that there is no way to get the argv[0] that was
> passed to the execve() call.

Then in the final example:

> $ ./execve ./script
> argv[0]: ./myecho
> argv[1]: script-arg
> argv[2]: ./script
> argv[3]: hello
> argv[4]: world

According to the description, argv[2] is supposed to be the *absolute pathn=
ame* of "./script" but it is not.
(In path_resolution(7), an absolute pathname is defined to be a pathname st=
arting with a '/' character.)

I tested the example with kernel 4.4.246 and the output is the same as the =
one in the man page (relative paths are preserved).
I don't know about newer kernels, but if I understand correctly, either the=
 "absolute pathname" wording is incorrect or the example is.
(In the latter case, perhaps the man page could also mention the change in =
behavior.)

The "absolute pathname" wording was introduced here:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/commit/?id=3D60=
f16bf2fe6bd2d2d001d0a41936e778b1e7e3f6
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/commit/?id=3D63=
059c4b527d0da73666da5ff29dcc902e219371

Regards,
NP