Getting in-process backtraces in a static linked binary

Asked Jul 08 '20 at 22:02

Active Jul 08 '20 at 22:02

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Glibc provides backtrace() and backtrace_symbols() for accessing a stack trace from within a process, independent of debugging symbols. However, per this question, a statically linked binary will omit the necessary .dynsym section even if the flag -rdynamic has been passed.

I'm aware of methods based on debugging symbols, using libdwarf or libdw from ELF utils. For reasons of binary size (and associated compilation time) and licensing (for the particular mentioned libraries), I'd prefer not to rely on those.

asked Jul 08 '20 at 22:02

Phil Miller

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It looks like `libunwind` depends on the same dynamic symbol table for naming: https://www.nongnu.org/libunwind/man/unw_get_proc_name(3).html – Phil Miller Jul 08 '20 at 22:03
Did you try using `--export-dynamic`? – Sam Varshavchik Jul 08 '20 at 22:10
That's exactly what passing `-rdynamic` to the compiler driver will cause it to pass to the linker. Unless you're suggesting that the linker will do what I want if I pass it explicitly, while the compiler driver suppresses it when calling the linker for a static binary? I.e. Are you suggestion I try `-Wl,-export-dynamic` instead of `-rdynamic`? – Phil Miller Jul 08 '20 at 22:14
libunwind works in statically linked executables. – n. m. could be an AI Jul 08 '20 at 23:24
Does it provide symbolic names, or just addresses? If it's providing symbol names, where is it getting them from that glibc `backtrace()` isn't? – Phil Miller Jul 08 '20 at 23:43
It provides names, try it. – n. m. could be an AI Jul 09 '20 at 18:05

Getting in-process backtraces in a static linked binary

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