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Guide to Assembly Language Programming in Linux Sivarama P. Dandamudi Guide to Assembly Language Programming in Linux ^ Sprriin ger This eBook does not include ancillary media that was packaged with the printed version of the book. Sivarama P. Dandamudi School of Computer Science Carleton University Ottawa, ON K1S5B6 Canada [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CLP. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN-10: 0-387-25897-3 (SC) ISBN-10: 0-387-26171-0 (e-book) ISBN-13: 978-0387-25897-3 (SC) ISBN-13: 978-0387-26171-3 (e-book) Printed on acid-free paper. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed in the United States of America. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 SPIN 11302087 springeronline.com To my parents, Subba Rao and Prameela Rani, my wife, Sobha, and my daughter, Veda Preface The primary goal of this book is to teach the IA-32 assembly language programming under the Linux operating system. A secondary objective is to provide a gende introduction to the Fedora Linux operating system. Linux has evolved substantially since its first appearance in 1991. Over the years, its popularity has grown as well. According to an estimate posted on http : //counter. li . org/, there are about 18 million Linux users worldwide. Hopefully, this book encourages even more people to switch to Linux. The book is self-contained and provides all the necessary background information. Since assembly language is very closely linked to the underlying processor architecture, a part of the book is dedicated to giving computer organization details. In addition, the basics of Linux are introduced in a separate chapter. These details are sufficient to work with the Linux operation system. The reader is assumed to have had some experience in a structured, high-level language such as C. However, the book does not assume extensive knowledge of any high-level language—only the basics are needed. Approach and Level of Presentation The book is targeted for software professionals who would like to move to Linux and get a com prehensive introduction to the IA-32 assembly language. It provides detailed, step-by-step instruc tions to install Linux as the second operating system. No previous knowledge of Linux is required. The reader is introduced to Linux and its com mands. Four chapters are dedicated to Linux and NASM assembler (installation and usage). The accompanying DVD-ROMs provide the necessary software to install the Linux operating system and learn assembly language programming. The assembly language is presented from the professional viewpoint. Since most professionals are full-time employees, the book takes their time constraints into consideration in presenting the material. viii Preface Summary of Special Features Here is a summary of the special features that sets this book apart: • The book includes the Red Hat Fedora Core 3 Linux distribution (a total of two DVD-ROMs are included with the book). Detailed step-by-step instructions are given to install Linux on a Windows machine. A complete chapter is used for this purpose, with several screenshots to help the reader during the installation process. • Free NASM assembler is provided so that the readers can get hands-on assembly language programming experience. • Special I/O software is provided to simplify assembly language programming. A set of input and output routines is provided so that the reader can focus on writing assembly language programs rather than spending time in understanding how the input and output are done using the basic I/O functions provided by the operating system. • Three chapters are included on computer organization. These chapters provide the necessary background to program in the assembly language. • Presentation of material is suitable for self-study. To facilitate this, extensive programming examples and figures are used to help the reader grasp the concepts. Each chapter contains a simple programming example in "Our First Program" section to gently introduce the con cepts discussed in the chapter. This section is typically followed by "Illustrative Examples" section, which gives more programming examples. • This book does not use fragments of code in examples. All examples are complete in the sense that they can be assembled and run, giving a better feeling as to how these pro grams work. These programs are on the accompanying DVD-ROM (DVD 2). In addition, you can also download these programs from the book's Web site at the following URL: http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~sivarama/linux_book. • Each chapter begins with an overview and ends with a summary. Overview of the Book The book is divided into seven parts. Part I provides introduction to the assembly language and gives reasons for programming in the assembly language. Assembly language is a low-level lan guage. To program in the assembly language, you should have some basic knowledge about the underlying processor and system organization. Part II provides this background on computer orga nization. Chapter 2 introduces the digital logic circuits. The next chapter gives details on memory organization. Chapter 4 describes the Intel IA-32 architecture. Part III covers the topics related to Linux installation and usage. Chapter 5 gives detailed information on how you can install the Fedora Core Linux provided on the accompanying DVD- ROMs. It also explains how you can make your system dual bootable so that you can select the operating system (Windows or Linux) at boot time. Chapter 6 gives a brief introduction to the Linux operating system. It gives enough details so that you feel comfortable using the Linux operating system. If you are familiar with Linux, you can skip this chapter. Part IV also consists of two chapters. It deals with assembling and debugging assembly lan guage programs. Chapter 7 gives details on the NASM assembler. It also describes the I/O routines developed by the author to facilitate assembly language programming. The next chapter looks at the debugging aspect of program development. We describe the GNU debugger (gdb), which is a command-line debugger. This chapter also gives details on Data Display Debugger (DDD), Preface ix which is a nice graphical front-end for gdb. Both debuggers are included on the accompanying DVD-ROMs. After covering the setup and usage details of Linux and NASM, we look at the assembly lan guage in Part V. This part introduces the basic instructions of the assembly language. To facilitate modular program development, we introduce procedures in the third chapter of this part. The re maining chapters describe the addressing modes and other instructions that are commonly used in assembly language programs. Part VI deals with advanced assembly language topics. It deals with topics such as string processing, recursion, floating-point operations, and interrupt processing. In addition. Chapter 21 explains how you can interface with high-level languages. By using C, we explain how you can call assembly language procedures from C and vice versa. This chapter also discusses how assembly language statements can be embedded into high-level language code. This process is called inline assembly. Again, by using C, this chapter shows how inline assembly is done under Linux. The last part consists of five appendices. These appendices give information on number sys tems and character representation. In addition, Appendix D gives a summary of the IA-32 instruc tion set. A comprehensive glossary is given in Appendix E. Acknowledgments I want to thank Wayne Wheeler, Editor and Ann Kostant, Executive Editor at Springer for suggest ing the project. I am also grateful to Wayne for seeing the project through. My wife Sobha and daughter Veda deserve my heartfelt thanks for enduring my preoccupation with this project! I also thank Sobha for proofreading the manuscript. She did an excellen tjob! I also express my appreciation to the School of Computer Science at Carleton University for providing a great atmosphere to complete this book. Feedback Works of this nature are never error-free, despite the best efforts of the authors and others involved in the project. I welcome your comments, suggestions, and corrections by electronic mail. Ottawa, Canada Sivarama P. Dandamudi January 2005 sivarama@scs . carleton. ca http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~sivarama Contents Preface vii PART I Overview 1 1 Assembly Language 3 Introduction 3 What Is Assembly Language? 5 Advantages of High-Level Languages 6 Why Program in Assembly Language? 7 Typical Applications 8 Summary 8 PART II Computer Organization 9 2 Digital Logic Circuits 11 Introduction 11 Simple Logic Gates 13 Logic Functions 15 Deriving Logical Expressions 17 Simplifying Logical Expressions 18 Combinational Circuits 23 Adders 26 Programmable Logic Devices 29 Arithmetic and Logic Units 32 Sequential Circuits 35 Latches 37 Flip-Flops 39 Summary 43 3 Memory Organization 45 Introduction 45 Basic Memory Operations 46 Types of Memory 48 Building a Memory Block 50 xii Contents Building Larger Memories 52 Mapping Memory 56 Storing Multibyte Data 58 Alignment of Data 59 Summary 60 4 The IA-32 Architecture 61 Introduction 61 Processor Execution Cycle 63 Processor Registers 63 Protected Mode Memory Architecture 67 Real Mode Memory Architecture 72 Mixed-Mode Operation 74 Which Segment Register to Use 75 Input/Output 76 Summary 78 PART III Linux 79 5 Installing Linux 81 Introduction 81 Partitioning Your Hard Disk 82 Installing Fedora Core Linux 92 Installing and Removing Software Packages 107 Mounting Windows File System 110 Summary 112 Getting Help 114 6 Using Linux 115 Introduction 115 Setting User Preferences 117 System Settings 123 Working with the GNOME Desktop 126 Command Terminal 132 Getting Help 134 Some General-Purpose Commands 135 File System 139 Access Permissions 141 Redirection 145 Pipes 146 Editing Files with Vim 147 Summary 149 PART IV NASM 151 7 Installing and Using NASM 153 Introduction 153 Installing NASM 154