ELF Hello World Tutorial / Generate the example Updated 2025-07-16
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Let's break down a minimal runnable Linux x86-64 example:
hello_world.asm
section .data
    hello_world db "Hello world!", 10
    hello_world_len  equ $ - hello_world
section .text
    global _start
    _start:
        mov rax, 1
        mov rdi, 1
        mov rsi, hello_world
        mov rdx, hello_world_len
        syscall
        mov rax, 60
        mov rdi, 0
        syscall
Compiled with:
nasm -w+all -f elf64 -o 'hello_world.o' 'hello_world.asm'
ld -o 'hello_world.out' 'hello_world.o'
TODO: use a minimal linker script with -T to be more precise and minimal.
Versions:
We don't use a C program as that would complicate the analysis, that will be level 2 :-)
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Global file structure Updated 2025-07-16
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An ELF file contains the following parts:
  • ELF header. Points to the position of the section header table and the program header table.
  • Section header table (optional on executable). Each has e_shnum section headers, each pointing to the position of a section.
  • N sections, with N <= e_shnum (optional on executable)
  • Program header table (only on executable). Each has e_phnum program headers, each pointing to the position of a segment.
  • N segments, with N <= e_phnum (only on executable)
The order of those parts is not fixed: the only fixed thing is the ELF header that must be the first thing on the file: Generic docs say:
Although the figure shows the program header table immediately after the ELF header, and the section header table following the sections, actual files may differ. Moreover, sections and segments have no specified order. Only the ELF header has a fixed position in the file.
In pictures: sample object file with three sections:
            +-------------------+
            | ELF header        |---+
+---------> +-------------------+   | e_shoff
|           |                   |<--+
| Section   | Section header 0  |
|           |                   |---+ sh_offset
| Header    +-------------------+   |
|           | Section header 1  |---|--+ sh_offset
| Table     +-------------------+   |  |
|           | Section header 2  |---|--|--+
+---------> +-------------------+   |  |  |
            | Section 0         |<--+  |  |
            +-------------------+      |  | sh_offset
            | Section 1         |<-----+  |
            +-------------------+         |
            | Section 2         |<--------+
            +-------------------+
But nothing (except sanity) prevents the following topology:
            +-------------------+
            | ELF header        |---+ e_shoff
            +-------------------+   |
            | Section 1         |<--|--+
+---------> +-------------------+   |  |
|           |                   |<--+  | sh_offset
| Section   | Section header 0  |      |
|           |                   |------|---------+
| Header    +-------------------+      |         |
|           | Section header 1  |------+         |
| Table     +-------------------+                |
|           | Section header 2  |---+            | sh_offset
+---------> +-------------------+   | sh_offset  |
            | Section 2         |<--+            |
            +-------------------+                |
            | Section 0         |<---------------+
            +-------------------+
But some newbies may prefer PNGs :-)
Figure 1.
ELF Executable and Linkable Format diagram by Ange Albertini
. Source.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / How to learn Updated 2025-07-16
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Spin like mad between:
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Index 0 section Updated 2025-07-16
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Contained in bytes 0x40 to 0x7F.
If the number of sections is greater than or equal to SHN_LORESERVE (0xff00), e_shnum has the value SHN_UNDEF (0) and the actual number of section header table entries is contained in the sh_size field of the section header at index 0 (otherwise, the sh_size member of the initial entry contains 0).
There are also other magic sections detailed in Figure 4-7: Special Section Indexes.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Introduction Updated 2025-07-16
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ELF is the dominating file format for Linux. It competes with Mach-O for OS X and PE for Windows.
ELF supersedes .coff, which supersedes a.out.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Minimal ELF file Updated 2025-07-16
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It is non-trivial to determine what is the smallest legal ELF file, or the smaller one that will do something trivial in Linux.
In this example we will consider a saner hello world example that will better capture real life cases.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Object hd Updated 2025-07-16
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Running:
hd hello_world.o
gives:
00000000  7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.ELF............|
00000010  01 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..>.............|
00000020  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........@.......|
00000030  00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00  00 00 40 00 07 00 03 00  |....@.....@.....|
00000040  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000080  01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000090  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000a0  0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000b0  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000c0  07 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  10 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000e0  27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |'...............|
000000f0  10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000100  0d 00 00 00 03 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000110  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  40 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........@.......|
00000120  32 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |2...............|
00000130  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000140  17 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000150  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  80 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000160  a8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  05 00 00 00 06 00 00 00  |................|
00000170  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  18 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000180  1f 00 00 00 03 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000190  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  30 03 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........0.......|
000001a0  34 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |4...............|
000001b0  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001c0  27 00 00 00 04 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |'...............|
000001d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  70 03 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........p.......|
000001e0  18 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  04 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |................|
000001f0  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  18 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000200  48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 77 6f  72 6c 64 21 0a 00 00 00  |Hello world!....|
00000210  b8 01 00 00 00 bf 01 00  00 00 48 be 00 00 00 00  |..........H.....|
00000220  00 00 00 00 ba 0d 00 00  00 0f 05 b8 3c 00 00 00  |............<...|
00000230  bf 00 00 00 00 0f 05 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000240  00 2e 64 61 74 61 00 2e  74 65 78 74 00 2e 73 68  |..data..text..sh|
00000250  73 74 72 74 61 62 00 2e  73 79 6d 74 61 62 00 2e  |strtab..symtab..|
00000260  73 74 72 74 61 62 00 2e  72 65 6c 61 2e 74 65 78  |strtab..rela.tex|
00000270  74 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |t...............|
00000280  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000290  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 04 00 f1 ff  |................|
000002a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000002b0  00 00 00 00 03 00 01 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000002c0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 03 00 02 00  |................|
000002d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000002e0  11 00 00 00 00 00 01 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000002f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  1d 00 00 00 00 00 f1 ff  |................|
00000300  0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000310  2d 00 00 00 10 00 02 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |-...............|
00000320  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000330  00 68 65 6c 6c 6f 5f 77  6f 72 6c 64 2e 61 73 6d  |.hello_world.asm|
00000340  00 68 65 6c 6c 6f 5f 77  6f 72 6c 64 00 68 65 6c  |.hello_world.hel|
00000350  6c 6f 5f 77 6f 72 6c 64  5f 6c 65 6e 00 5f 73 74  |lo_world_len._st|
00000360  61 72 74 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |art.............|
00000370  0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |................|
00000380  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000390
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .rela.text Updated 2025-07-16
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Section type: sh_type == SHT_RELA.
Common name: "relocation section".
.rela.text holds relocation data which says how the address should be modified when the final executable is linked. This points to bytes of the text area that must be modified when linking happens to point to the correct memory locations.
Basically, it translates the object text containing the placeholder 0x0 address:
   a:       48 be 00 00 00 00 00    movabs $0x0,%rsi
  11:       00 00 00
to the actual executable code containing the final 0x6000d8:
4000ba: 48 be d8 00 60 00 00    movabs $0x6000d8,%rsi
4000c1: 00 00 00
It was pointed to by sh_info = 6 of the .symtab section.
readelf -r hello_world.o outputs:
Relocation section '.rela.text' at offset 0x3b0 contains 1 entries:
  Offset          Info           Type           Sym. Value    Sym. Name + Addend
00000000000c  000200000001 R_X86_64_64       0000000000000000 .data + 0
The section does not exist in the executable.
The actual bytes are:
00000370  0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |................|
00000380  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
The struct represented is:
typedef struct {
    Elf64_Addr  r_offset;
    Elf64_Xword r_info;
    Elf64_Sxword    r_addend;
} Elf64_Rela;
So:
  • 370 0: r_offset = 0xC: address into the .text whose address this relocation will modify
  • 370 8: r_info = 0x200000001. Contains 2 fields:
    • ELF64_R_TYPE = 0x1: meaning depends on the exact architecture.
    • ELF64_R_SYM = 0x2: index of the section to which the address points, so .data which is at index 2.
    The AMD64 ABI says that type 1 is called R_X86_64_64 and that it represents the operation S + A where:
    • S: the value of the symbol on the object file, here 0 because we point to the 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 of movabs $0x0,%rsi
    • A: the addend, present in field r_added
    This address is added to the section on which the relocation operates.
    This relocation operation acts on a total 8 bytes.
  • 380 0: r_addend = 0
So in our example we conclude that the new address will be: S + A = .data + 0, and thus the first thing in the data section.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .rel.text Updated 2025-07-16
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Besides sh_type == SHT_RELA, there also exists SHT_REL, which would have section name .text.rel (not present in this object file).
Those represent the same struct, but without the addend, e.g.:
typedef struct {
    Elf64_Addr  r_offset;
    Elf64_Xword r_info;
} Elf64_Rela;
The ELF standard says that in many cases the both can be used, and it is just a matter of convenience.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Section header table Updated 2025-07-16
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Array of Elf64_Shdr structs.
Each entry contains metadata about a given section.
e_shoff of the ELF header gives the starting position, 0x40 here.
e_shentsize and e_shnum from the ELF header say that we have 7 entries, each 0x40 bytes long.
So the table takes bytes from 0x40 to 0x40 + 7 + 0x40 - 1 = 0x1FF.
Some section names are reserved for certain section types: www.sco.com/developers/gabi/2003-12-17/ch4.sheader.html#special_sections e.g. .text requires a SHT_PROGBITS type and SHF_ALLOC + SHF_EXECINSTR
Running:
readelf -S hello_world.o
outputs:
There are 7 section headers, starting at offset 0x40:

Section Headers:
  [Nr] Name              Type             Address           Offset
       Size              EntSize          Flags  Link  Info  Align
  [ 0]                   NULL             0000000000000000  00000000
       0000000000000000  0000000000000000           0     0     0
  [ 1] .data             PROGBITS         0000000000000000  00000200
       000000000000000d  0000000000000000  WA       0     0     4
  [ 2] .text             PROGBITS         0000000000000000  00000210
       0000000000000027  0000000000000000  AX       0     0     16
  [ 3] .shstrtab         STRTAB           0000000000000000  00000240
       0000000000000032  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [ 4] .symtab           SYMTAB           0000000000000000  00000280
       00000000000000a8  0000000000000018           5     6     4
  [ 5] .strtab           STRTAB           0000000000000000  00000330
       0000000000000034  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [ 6] .rela.text        RELA             0000000000000000  00000370
       0000000000000018  0000000000000018           4     2     4
Key to Flags:
  W (write), A (alloc), X (execute), M (merge), S (strings), l (large)
  I (info), L (link order), G (group), T (TLS), E (exclude), x (unknown)
  O (extra OS processing required) o (OS specific), p (processor specific)
The struct represented by each entry is:
typedef struct {
    Elf64_Word  sh_name;
    Elf64_Word  sh_type;
    Elf64_Xword sh_flags;
    Elf64_Addr  sh_addr;
    Elf64_Off   sh_offset;
    Elf64_Xword sh_size;
    Elf64_Word  sh_link;
    Elf64_Word  sh_info;
    Elf64_Xword sh_addralign;
    Elf64_Xword sh_entsize;
} Elf64_Shdr;
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Section vs segment Updated 2025-07-16
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We will get into more detail later, but it is good to have it in mind now:
  • section: exists before linking, in object files.
    One ore more sections will be put inside a single segment by the linker.
    Major information sections contain for the linker: is this section:
    • raw data to be loaded into memory, e.g. .data, .text, etc.
    • or metadata about other sections, that will be used by the linker, but disappear at runtime e.g. .symtab, .srttab, .rela.text
  • segment: exists after linking, in the executable file.
    Contains information about how each segment should be loaded into memory by the OS, notably location and permissions.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / SHN_ABS Updated 2025-07-16
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hello_world_len points to the special st_shndx == SHN_ABS == 0xF1FF.
0xF1FF is chosen so as to not conflict with other sections.
st_value == 0xD == 13 which is the value we have stored there on the assembly: the length of the string Hello World!.
This means that relocation will not affect this value: it is a constant.
This is small optimization that our assembler does for us and which has ELF support.
If we had used the address of hello_world_len anywhere, the assembler would not have been able to mark it as SHN_ABS, and the linker would have extra relocation work on it later.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .shstrtab Updated 2025-07-16
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Section type: sh_type == SHT_STRTAB.
Common name: "section header string table".
The section name .shstrtab is reserved. The standard says:
This section holds section names.
This section gets pointed to by the e_shstrnd field of the ELF header itself.
String indexes of this section are are pointed to by the sh_name field of section headers, which denote strings.
This section does not have SHF_ALLOC marked, so it will not appear on the executing program.
readelf -x .shstrtab hello_world.o
outputs:
Hex dump of section '.shstrtab':
  0x00000000 002e6461 7461002e 74657874 002e7368 ..data..text..sh
  0x00000010 73747274 6162002e 73796d74 6162002e strtab..symtab..
  0x00000020 73747274 6162002e 72656c61 2e746578 strtab..rela.tex
  0x00000030 7400                                t.
If we look at the names of other sections, we see that they all contain numbers, e.g. the .text section is number 7.
Then each string ends when the first NUL character is found, e.g. character 12 is \0 just after .text\0.
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Eligius pool Updated 2025-07-16
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Created by Luke Dashjr.
The pool is named after Saint Eligius, patron of miners[ref]
Eligius also means to "choose" or "chosen" in Latin: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eligius, same root as "to elect" in modern English presumably.
Figure 1.
Saint Eligius by Petrus Christus
. Source. Eligius pool is named after Saint Eligius, patron of goldsmiths and miners[ref]
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Standards Updated 2025-07-16
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The LSB basically links to other standards with minor extensions, in particular:
A handy summary can be found at:
man elf
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .strtab Updated 2025-07-16
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Holds strings for the symbol table.
This section has sh_type == SHT_STRTAB.
It is pointed to by sh_link == 5 of the .symtab section.
readelf -x .strtab hello_world.o
outputs:
Hex dump of section '.strtab':
  0x00000000 0068656c 6c6f5f77 6f726c64 2e61736d .hello_world.asm
  0x00000010 0068656c 6c6f5f77 6f726c64 0068656c .hello_world.hel
  0x00000020 6c6f5f77 6f726c64 5f6c656e 005f7374 lo_world_len._st
  0x00000030 61727400                            art.
This implies that it is an ELF level limitation that global variables cannot contain NUL characters.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / STT_NOTYPE Updated 2025-07-16
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Then come the most important symbols:
Num:    Value          Size Type    Bind   Vis      Ndx Name
  4: 0000000000000000     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 hello_world
  5: 000000000000000d     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT  ABS hello_world_len
  6: 0000000000000000     0 NOTYPE  GLOBAL DEFAULT    2 _start
hello_world string is in the .data section (index 1). It's value is 0: it points to the first byte of that section.
_start is marked with GLOBAL visibility since we wrote:
global _start
in NASM. This is necessary since it must be seen as the entry point. Unlike in C, by default NASM labels are local.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / STT_SECTION Updated 2025-07-16
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There are two such entries, one pointing to .data and the other to .text (section indexes 1 and 2).
Num:    Value          Size Type    Bind   Vis      Ndx Name
  2: 0000000000000000     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    1
  3: 0000000000000000     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    2
TODO what is their purpose?
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .symtab Updated 2025-07-16
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Section type: sh_type == SHT_SYMTAB.
Common name: "symbol table".
First the we note that:
  • sh_link = 5
  • sh_info = 6
For SHT_SYMTAB sections, those numbers mean that:
  • strings that give symbol names are in section 5, .strtab
  • the relocation data is in section 6, .rela.text
A good high level tool to disassemble that section is:
nm hello_world.o
which gives:
0000000000000000 T _start
0000000000000000 d hello_world
000000000000000d a hello_world_len
This is however a high level view that omits some types of symbols and in which the symbol types . A more detailed disassembly can be obtained with:
readelf -s hello_world.o
which gives:
Symbol table '.symtab' contains 7 entries:
   Num:    Value          Size Type    Bind   Vis      Ndx Name
     0: 0000000000000000     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT  UND
     1: 0000000000000000     0 FILE    LOCAL  DEFAULT  ABS hello_world.asm
     2: 0000000000000000     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    1
     3: 0000000000000000     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    2
     4: 0000000000000000     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 hello_world
     5: 000000000000000d     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT  ABS hello_world_len
     6: 0000000000000000     0 NOTYPE  GLOBAL DEFAULT    2 _start
The binary format of the table is documented at www.sco.com/developers/gabi/2003-12-17/ch4.symtab.html
The data is:
readelf -x .symtab hello_world.o
which gives:
Hex dump of section '.symtab':
  0x00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
  0x00000010 00000000 00000000 01000000 0400f1ff ................
  0x00000020 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
  0x00000030 00000000 03000100 00000000 00000000 ................
  0x00000040 00000000 00000000 00000000 03000200 ................
  0x00000050 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
  0x00000060 11000000 00000100 00000000 00000000 ................
  0x00000070 00000000 00000000 1d000000 0000f1ff ................
  0x00000080 0d000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
  0x00000090 2d000000 10000200 00000000 00000000 -...............
  0x000000a0 00000000 00000000                   ........
The entries are of type:
typedef struct {
    Elf64_Word  st_name;
    unsigned char   st_info;
    unsigned char   st_other;
    Elf64_Half  st_shndx;
    Elf64_Addr  st_value;
    Elf64_Xword st_size;
} Elf64_Sym;
Like in the section table, the first entry is magical and set to a fixed meaningless values.
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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .text section Updated 2025-07-16
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Now that we've done one section manually, let's graduate and use the readelf -S of the other sections:
  [Nr] Name              Type             Address           Offset
       Size              EntSize          Flags  Link  Info  Align
  [ 2] .text             PROGBITS         0000000000000000  00000210
       0000000000000027  0000000000000000  AX       0     0     16
.text is executable but not writable: if we try to write to it Linux segfaults. Let's see if we really have some code there:
objdump -d hello_world.o
gives:
hello_world.o:     file format elf64-x86-64


Disassembly of section .text:

0000000000000000 <_start>:
   0:       b8 01 00 00 00          mov    $0x1,%eax
   5:       bf 01 00 00 00          mov    $0x1,%edi
   a:       48 be 00 00 00 00 00    movabs $0x0,%rsi
  11:       00 00 00
  14:       ba 0d 00 00 00          mov    $0xd,%edx
  19:       0f 05                   syscall
  1b:       b8 3c 00 00 00          mov    $0x3c,%eax
  20:       bf 00 00 00 00          mov    $0x0,%edi
  25:       0f 05                   syscall
If we grep b8 01 00 00 on the hd, we see that this only occurs at 00000210, which is what the section says. And the Size is 27, which matches as well. So we must be talking about the right section.
This looks like the right code: a write followed by an exit.
The most interesting part is line a which does:
movabs $0x0,%rsi
to pass the address of the string to the system call. Currently, the 0x0 is just a placeholder. After linking happens, it will be modified to contain:
4000ba: 48 be d8 00 60 00 00    movabs $0x6000d8,%rsi
This modification is possible because of the data of the .rela.text section.
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