xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/linux.4 (revision 814bd1ed438f7dfc5bedcb1f3e772a46fe7026bb)
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25.\" $FreeBSD$
26.\"
27.Dd January 9, 2022
28.Dt LINUX 4
29.Os
30.Sh NAME
31.Nm linux
32.Nd Linux ABI support
33.Sh SYNOPSIS
34To enable the Linux ABI at boot time, place the following line in
35.Xr rc.conf 5 :
36.Bd -literal -offset indent
37linux_enable="YES"
38.Ed
39.Sh DESCRIPTION
40The
41.Nm
42kernel module provides limited Linux ABI (application binary interface)
43compatibility, making it possible to run many unmodified Linux applications
44without the need for virtualization or emulation.
45Some of the facilities provided are:
46.Bl -bullet
47.It
48Linux to native system call translation
49.It
50Linux-specific system calls
51.It
52Special signal handling for Linux processes
53.It
54Path translation mechanism
55.It
56Linux-specific virtual file systems
57.El
58.Pp
59The path translation mechanism makes Linux processes look up file paths
60under
61.Va emul_path
62(defaulting to
63.Pa /compat/linux )
64before
65.Pa / .
66For example, when Linux process attempts to open
67.Pa /etc/passwd ,
68it will really access
69.Pa /compat/linux/etc/passwd ,
70unless the latter does not exist.
71This is used to make sure Linux processes load Linux shared libraries
72instead of their similarly-named FreeBSD counterparts, and also
73to provide alternative versions of certain other files and virtual
74file systems.
75.Pp
76To install Linux shared libraries and system files into
77.Pa /compat/linux ,
78either use the
79.Pa emulators/linux_base-c7
80port or package,
81or
82.Xr debootstrap 8
83installed from
84.Pa sysutils/debootstrap .
85.Pp
86To avoid mounting Linux-specific filesystems at startup, add the following
87line to the
88.Xr rc.conf 5
89file:
90.Pp
91.Dl linux_mounts_enable="NO"
92.Sh SYSCTL VARIABLES
93The following variables are available as both
94.Xr sysctl 8
95variables and
96.Xr loader 8
97tunables:
98.Bl -tag -width indent
99.It Va compat.linux.debug
100Enable debugging messages.
101Set to 0 to silence them.
102Defaults to 3.
103A setting of 1 prints debug messages, tells about unimplemented stuff (only
104once).
105Set to 2 is like 1, but also prints messages about implemented but not tested
106stuff (only once).
107Setting it to 3 or higher is like 2, but no rate limiting of messages.
108.It Va compat.linux.default_openfiles
109Default soft openfiles resource limit for Linux applications.
110Set to -1 to disable the limit.
111Defaults to 1024.
112.It Va compat.linux.emul_path
113Path to the Linux run-time environment.
114Defaults to
115.Pa /compat/linux .
116.It Va compat.linux.osname
117Linux kernel operating system name.
118Defaults to "Linux".
119.It Va compat.linux.osrelease
120Linux kernel operating system release.
121Changing this to something else is discouraged on non-development systems,
122because it may change the way Linux programs work.
123Some versions of GNU libc are known to use different syscalls depending
124on the value of this sysctl.
125.It Va compat.linux.oss_version
126Linux Open Sound System version.
127Defaults to 198144.
128.It Va compat.linux.preserve_vstatus
129When set to 1, it prevents Linux applications from resetting the
130.Xr termios 4
131VSTATUS setting.
132From a user perspective, this makes
133.Va SIGINFO
134work for Linux executables.
135Defaults to 1.
136.It Va compat.linux.setid_allowed
137Enable handling of set-user-ID and set-group-ID mode bits for the new
138process image file when image is to be executed under Linux ABI.
139When set to 0, new Linux images always use credentials of the program
140that issued the
141.Xr execve 2
142call, regardless of the image file mode.
143This might be reasonable or even required, because
144.Fx
145does not emulate the Linux environment completely, and missed features
146may result in security vulnerabilities.
147Defaults to 1.
148.It Va compat.linux32.emulate_i386
149In the x86_64 (amd64) world enable the real i386 Linuxulator behavior.
150For example, when set to 0, Linux uname -m will return "x86_64" even if
151uname itself is a i386 Linux executable. When set to 1, Linux i386
152uname -m will return "i686".
153Defaults to 0.
154.El
155.Sh FILES
156.Bl -tag -width /compat/linux/dev/shm -compact
157.It Pa /compat/linux
158Linux run-time environment
159.It Pa /compat/linux/dev
160device file system, see
161.Xr devfs 5
162.It Pa /compat/linux/dev/fd
163file descriptor file system mounted with the
164.Cm linrdlnk
165option, see
166.Xr fdescfs 5
167.It Pa /compat/linux/dev/shm
168in-memory file system, see
169.Xr tmpfs 5
170.It Pa /compat/linux/proc
171Linux process file system, see
172.Xr linprocfs 5
173.It Pa /compat/linux/sys
174Linux kernel objects file system, see
175.Xr linsysfs 5
176.El
177.Sh SEE ALSO
178.Xr brandelf 1 ,
179.Xr pty 4 ,
180.Xr elf 5 ,
181.Xr fdescfs 5 ,
182.Xr linprocfs 5 ,
183.Xr linsysfs 5 ,
184.Xr tmpfs 5
185.Sh HISTORY
186Linux ABI support first appeared for i386 in
187.Fx 2.1 .
188Support for amd64 binaries first appeared in
189.Fx 10.3 .
190Support for arm64 binaries first appeared in
191.Fx 12.0 .
192.Sh BUGS
193Support for some of the Linux-specific system calls and system call arguments
194is missing.
195