K
Ksplice Blog
blog.ksplice.com · Company blog · on HN since 2010
The Ksplice engineers wrote long technical articles on Linux kernel internals, executables, memory errors, and shell and Perl tricks.
What HN saysCommenters remember it as a favorite blog of in-depth kernel articles and lament that it went down after Oracle's purchase moved it.
30HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
38stories submitted
1.5Kstory points
15 years agolast shared
2010people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How to write a filesystem in 50 lines of code3 people · 136 points · first shared 2010 · 28 comments on HN
- 2Sections and segments and symbols oh my. Dissecting a Linux executable.3 people · 44 points · first shared 2010 · 2 comments on HN
- 3I want to compile a C program so simple I can explain all of the assembly2 people · 274 points · first shared 2010 · 38 comments on HN
- 4Attack of the cosmic rays: Undetected memory errors can happen to you2 people · 118 points · first shared 2010 · 28 comments on HN
- 510 tips for writing perl one-liners2 people · 64 points · first shared 2010 · 18 comments on HN
- 6Solving real-world problems with Linux's proc filesystem2 people · 29 points · first shared 2011 · 1 comments on HN
- 7Hosting backdoors in hardware2 people · 16 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 8Disown, zombie children, and the uninterruptible sleep2 people · 13 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 9Longest Tweet Contest winners announced, including one fish2 people · 4 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 10Super Mario Bros (NES) patched to eliminate wall-walking bug2 people · 3 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 11How to quadruple your productivity with an army of student interns1 people · 95 points · first shared 2010 · 46 comments on HN
- 12Traceroute in 40 lines of Python1 people · 73 points · first shared 2010 · 7 comments on HN
- 13A look at the wireless traffic of MIT students1 people · 72 points · first shared 2010 · 32 comments on HN
- 14Source-diving as a system administrator1 people · 66 points · first shared 2010 · 7 comments on HN
- 15Dereferencing a NULL pointer always segfaults, right? Not if you're clever...1 people · 65 points · first shared 2010 · 16 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
davidbalbert · 2011-07-22
Looks like their blog is down too (http://blog.ksplice.com). This was by far one of my favorite blogs. Good, long, articles about kernel hacking. I hope it comes back up soon and isn't gone for good.
dave1010uk · 2011-05-22
Related: the Ksplice blog has a great post on disown and how to manage processes:
http://blog.ksplice.com/2011/03/disown-zombie-children-and-the-uninter…
alexwestholm · 2010-12-06
The article references some great modules for those actually writing perl code.
For those that never learn to write full apps in perl, there are still a few gem 1-liners that are worth tucking away. For instance,
perl -pi.bak -e 's/something/something_else/g' *.erl
would act as a global substitution with backups (any file changed would have an original x.erl.bak).
A list of some other useful 1-liners can be found here:
http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/05/top-10-perl-one-liner-tricks/
ash · 2011-10-26
It's a shame Oracle moved Ksplice blog after its purchase. This move appeared to be slow and not complete. Part 2 was originally here: http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/04/libc-free-world-2/
nitefly · 2011-04-01
Security Advisory SMB-1985-0001: Plumber Injection Attack in Bowser’s Castle:
http://blog.ksplice.com/2011/04/smb-1985-0001-advisory
callahad · 2010-11-19
angusgr · 2010-11-12
At least part of the "fun" on a loosely modern operating system is learning the nuts and bolts of the executable format and loading conventions.
I've never spent much time there, but some of the ideas are laid out well in this two part post:
http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/04/libc-free-world-2/
Doing it with _just_ a hex editor (ie writing out the ELF headers and sections yourself) may not be exactly what the commenter did, though. Cos that sounds really tedious.
I imagine that even writing "Hello, World" in the simpler way that you describe, on a simpler system (Apple IIe or so), would probably teach me something. I remember trying to write 6502 machine code in hex (no assembler) on my IIe when I was about 10 years old. It never worked then, I wonder if it would work now?
jerhinesmith · 2010-09-05
Can someone give some insight on the last line?
That's it. Simple. Now you can launch the hello program by entering ./hello. Look at the binary size -- surprised?
Without being able to compile the executable myself, is the binary surprisingly large or small? A few months ago, someone posted this article:
http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/03/libc-free-world/
Which leads me to believe that the executable is surprisingly large given the content. Am I understanding that correctly?
pepijndevos · 2010-06-25
Exactly my thought! Remember this one? http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/06/attack-of-the-cosmic-rays/