linux-kernel - Re: a.out coredumping: fix or delete?

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Date:   Tue, 5 Mar 2019 04:22:18 -0800
From:   Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
To:     Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>
Cc:     Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>, Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org,
        the arch/x86 maintainers <x86@...nel.org>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: a.out coredumping: fix or delete?

On Tue, Mar 05, 2019 at 10:19:04AM +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 02, 2019 at 12:57:30AM +0100, Jann Horn wrote:
> > In theory, Linux can dump cores for a.out binaries. In practice, that
> > code is pretty bitrotten and buggy. Does anyone want that code so much
> > that they'd like to fix it, or can we just delete it?
> 
> I was asking myself the same question while doing
> 
>   10970e1b4be9 ("x86/a.out: Clear the dump structure initially")
> 
> especially since it is kinda hard to get the toolchain to even create an
> a.out executable - your script to create one case-in-point.

It's been 25 years since Linux added support for ELF.  Can we just
delete the a.out support entirely now?  According to the Linux-ELF HOWTO,
support was added in 1.1.52 (August 1994).  It's pretty much necromancy
at this point.