5 ms·

Shouldn't they just run Linux on arm? Seeing as Linux already supports it?

saagarjha 8y ago
You’re going to have to be more specific; what exactly do you mean by “run Linux on ARM”? Sure, I can compile Linux for ARM and put it in an app, and provided I am careful, I can bootstrap the kernel and get Linux up and running. But what do I do from here? I have Linux “running”, but it no container app around it anymore to allow interaction with iOS. (This is, of course, considering that you have gotten codesigning to work correctly and have full control over when the kernel JITs).
- 0xdeadb00f 8y ago
  I mean they should have just emulated Linux on an arm processor, seeing as the hardware (Apple A-series) is already arm-based I assume that wouldn't cause as many performance issues as emulating a completely different architecture, x86. I assume, based on the first comment in this chain - I'm not experienced with emulation of different processor architectures.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Like I said, “emulat[ing] Linux on an arm processor” is not as simple as you make it seem. To do something similar on x86, that is, run Linux on your Intel processor, you need virtualization software that acts as a hypervisor. iOS devices do not provide the capabilities to write software like this, so doing any sort of emulation in this way would not really work.
    - fit2rule 8y ago
      I believe what the OP is trying to say is, what if this weren't an x86 emulator, but rather just a shim which allows ARM native assembly code to be being run in the context of iOS, only with traps that allow access to a kind of HAL within the context of the App .. meaning that instead of loading up an x86 image containing the Linux kernel and user space, it'd load an ARM-based Linux kernel and does the trapping required to give a native runtime experience .. underneath the iOS layers. That would be quite feasible and not at all impossible. And given that the original author of this amazing project has the balls required to pull off a JIT-type scheme to do x86-ARM translations, quite probably within their reach.
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        There would need to be some sort of emulation later in place at some point, because traps into the kernel would need to be intercepted by the application and this just isn’t possible (at least, to my knowledge) in any application that just straight up runs unmodified native binaries. So it really doesn’t matter whether the author emulates x86 or ARM because there’ll be a performance hit either way.
        tluyben2 8y ago
        This is the kind of thing that Apple would need to build into their processors to make iOS coding more 'free' without compromising security, right?
        saagarjha 8y ago
        I think Apple's processors support virtualization already. I'm not sure, though.
        tluyben2 8y ago
        Probably they need 'more' though or why would they be so particular about user binaries and so on? Great work anyway from your side. It works well...
      - zydeco 8y ago
        I don't think it's possible to do something like on iOS, because you can't write to executable pages (IIRC making a page executable requires the "dynamic_codesign" entitlement, which some Apple apps have).
        saagarjha 8y ago
        dynamic-codesigning gates MAP_JIT, which is what MobileSafari uses for achieving just in time execution for JavaScript. However, you can still have a “poor man’s” JIT by marking a page as RW, sticking code in there, then marking it as RX, which does not require dynamic-codesigning and can be done by apps not made by Apple.

You’re going to have to be more specific; what exactly do you mean by “run Linux on ARM”? Sure, I can compile Linux for ARM and put it in an app, and provided I am careful, I can bootstrap the kernel and get Linux up and running. But what do I do from here? I have Linux “running”, but it no container app around it anymore to allow interaction with iOS. (This is, of course, considering that you have gotten codesigning to work correctly and have full control over when the kernel JITs).

0xdeadb00f 8y ago
I mean they should have just emulated Linux on an arm processor, seeing as the hardware (Apple A-series) is already arm-based I assume that wouldn't cause as many performance issues as emulating a completely different architecture, x86. I assume, based on the first comment in this chain - I'm not experienced with emulation of different processor architectures.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Like I said, “emulat[ing] Linux on an arm processor” is not as simple as you make it seem. To do something similar on x86, that is, run Linux on your Intel processor, you need virtualization software that acts as a hypervisor. iOS devices do not provide the capabilities to write software like this, so doing any sort of emulation in this way would not really work.
  - fit2rule 8y ago
    I believe what the OP is trying to say is, what if this weren't an x86 emulator, but rather just a shim which allows ARM native assembly code to be being run in the context of iOS, only with traps that allow access to a kind of HAL within the context of the App .. meaning that instead of loading up an x86 image containing the Linux kernel and user space, it'd load an ARM-based Linux kernel and does the trapping required to give a native runtime experience .. underneath the iOS layers. That would be quite feasible and not at all impossible. And given that the original author of this amazing project has the balls required to pull off a JIT-type scheme to do x86-ARM translations, quite probably within their reach.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      There would need to be some sort of emulation later in place at some point, because traps into the kernel would need to be intercepted by the application and this just isn’t possible (at least, to my knowledge) in any application that just straight up runs unmodified native binaries. So it really doesn’t matter whether the author emulates x86 or ARM because there’ll be a performance hit either way.
      - tluyben2 8y ago
        This is the kind of thing that Apple would need to build into their processors to make iOS coding more 'free' without compromising security, right?
        saagarjha 8y ago
        I think Apple's processors support virtualization already. I'm not sure, though.
        tluyben2 8y ago
        Probably they need 'more' though or why would they be so particular about user binaries and so on? Great work anyway from your side. It works well...
    - zydeco 8y ago
      I don't think it's possible to do something like on iOS, because you can't write to executable pages (IIRC making a page executable requires the "dynamic_codesign" entitlement, which some Apple apps have).
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        dynamic-codesigning gates MAP_JIT, which is what MobileSafari uses for achieving just in time execution for JavaScript. However, you can still have a “poor man’s” JIT by marking a page as RW, sticking code in there, then marking it as RX, which does not require dynamic-codesigning and can be done by apps not made by Apple.