2015/08/22

DISCLAIMER: These notes are from the defunct k8 project which precedes SquirrelJME. The notes for SquirrelJME start on 2016/02/26! The k8 project was effectively a Java SE 8 operating system and as such all of the notes are in the context of that scope. That project is no longer my goal as SquirrelJME is the spiritual successor to it.

01:24

I have the base code for writing payloads, I just need to write the payload output for the ELF format then I can pass it to QEMU via -kernel or load it up on a CD-RW/DVD-RW. I am rather sleepy now so I can write the ELF writing code later today. At least with a bootstrap I can run something minimal. Although it is not much however. It should help to motivate me to work on the compiler bits so I can actually have Java code being run natively as the kernel.

10:52

Now that I am awake after reading some things it is time to write out the payload with a KBF into an ELF file.

12:52

Using OutputStream to write the file is too weak, I need a seekable byte channel since that will be much better. A FileChannel should do as it could be resized as needed during generation since there may be some going back and forth between objects.

21:27

Saw the International Space Station again, it was not as bright as it was yesterday (it was brighter than Venus (how it usually is)). It was also lower in the sky, only 11 degrees which is not much.

21:31

Now I have a basic ELF print out, which is readable by objdump! joy!

k8-powerpc-generic_ieee1275_powerpc-narf.elf: ELF 32-bit MSB executable,
PowerPC or cisco 4500, version 1 (SYSV)

k8-powerpc-generic_ieee1275_powerpc-narf.elf:     file format elf32-powerpc
k8-powerpc-generic_ieee1275_powerpc-narf.elf
architecture: powerpc:common, flags 0x00000002:
EXEC_P
start address 0x00000000

Sections:
Idx Name          Size      VMA       LMA       File off  Algn
SYMBOL TABLE:
no symbols

23:02

Somehow my ELF is malformed. I added a new section since it appeared that having the strings in the first section would cause trouble because it would mean there would be a NULL shared string index (possibly). However now it appears that sections are not being placed properly.

23:19

Actually I figured it out, I was using the section header names string as the data buffer for every single section. This is why it appeared as data for the first NULL section and why all other sections had no remaining data to be written.

23:24

Did it twice actually.