Q&A: How OS X Executes Applications

After writing my previous article, How OS X Executes Applications, I received quite a few comments and e-mails with some good questions. I will attempt to answer some of them here, and continue to update this entry as questions arise.

Question 1. What is libSystem.B.dylib?

evil:~/Temp mohit$ otool -L /bin/ls
/bin/ls:
        /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
        /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 88.0.0)

The System library, found in /usr/lib/libSystem.dylib, is simply a collection of core libraries that are used by most Darwin applications. A few libraries worth mentioning that are in libSystem.dylib are:

• libc : The standard C library.
• libdl : The dynamic loader library.
• libm : The math library.
• libpthread : The POSIX threads library.
• libinfo : The NetInfo library.

To get a complete list of modules and symbols within the library, use the -Tv switch of the otool command.

Question 2. Is there an objdump for OS X?

Yes there is, and it supports Mach-O binaries. It's just not distributed with Darwin / OS X. This link on this site, tells you what systems objdump is distributed with.

Question 3. Are executable code and readonly data in the same _TEXT segment? If so, how can they mark part of it executable and part not executable (normal security practice nowadays)?

I actually updated the article with the answer to this, but its a good question, and I'll answer it here again.

Segments may be sub-divided into sections. Within the __TEXT segment, only certain sections, e.g., __text, or __picsymbol_stub, can contain executable code.

To determine which sections contain executable code, use the -lv parameter with otool, and look at the attribute named attributes.

evil:~/Temp mohit$ otool -lv /bin/ls | egrep '(sectname|attributes)'
  sectname __text
attributes PURE_INSTRUCTIONS SOME_INSTRUCTIONS
  sectname __picsymbol_stub
attributes PURE_INSTRUCTIONS
  sectname __symbol_stub
attributes PURE_INSTRUCTIONS
  sectname __picsymbolstub1
attributes PURE_INSTRUCTIONS SOME_INSTRUCTIONS
  sectname __cstring
attributes (none)
  sectname __symbol_stub1
attributes PURE_INSTRUCTIONS SOME_INSTRUCTIONS
  sectname __literal8
attributes (none)
  sectname __eh_frame
attributes NO_TOC STRIP_STATIC_SYMS LIVE_SUPPORT
  sectname __data
attributes (none)
  sectname __nl_symbol_ptr
attributes (none)
  sectname __la_symbol_ptr
attributes (none)
  sectname __dyld
attributes (none)
  sectname __common
attributes (none)
  sectname __bss
attributes (none)

The sections with attributes set to PURE_INSTRUCTIONS contain executable code.

Question 4. How do I dechipher the constants in the otool output?

There are two ways to do this: One way is to examine the header files in /usr/include/mach and /usr/include/mach-o; and the other, simpler, way is to just add -v to your otool commands.

evil:~/Temp mohit$ otool -vh /bin/ls      
/bin/ls:
Mach header
      magic cputype cpusubtype   filetype ncmds sizeofcmds      flags
   MH_MAGIC     PPC        ALL    EXECUTE    11       1608   NOUNDEFS DYLDLINK TWOLEVEL

Question 5. What are Two-Level Namespaces?

It is a feature included since OS X 10.1, that prevents collisions with symbol names in dynamic libraries. It works by associating library names with symbol names at compile time.

Suppose you have an application that is linked against libfirst and libsecond. libfirst exports a function called dothis(). At a later time, a new version of libsecond comes out with its own dothis() function. Now, the application may execute whichever dothis() function it loads first, which may not be the one that was intended.

With two-level namespaces (enabled by default), the linker associates dothis() with libfirst at compile time. This prevents the chances of symbol collisions in future versions of linked libraries.

Question 6. Is Steve Jobs going to have you executed for reverse engineering this information?

Yes he is.

Seriously though, all this information is public knowledge. I did not "reverse engineeer" anything. All I did was put together the most relevant parts of the documents mentioned at the end of the article. And I would suggest reading them for a deeper understanding of the OS X runtime environments.