NAME

Linux::Personality - Perl interface to the personality(2) Linux system call.

SYNOPSIS

Common usage:

  use Linux::Personality qw/personality PER_LINUX32 /;
  print `uname -m`;                  # x86_64
  personality(PER_LINUX32);
  print `uname -m`;                  # i686

Use flags for bugs emulation:

  use Linux::Personality qw/personality
                            PER_LINUX32
                            ADDR_LIMIT_3GB
                            SHORT_INODE
                            MMAP_PAGE_ZERO /;
  personality(PER_LINUX32 | ADDR_LIMIT_3GB | SHORT_INODE | MMAP_PAGE_ZERO);

DESCRIPTION

You can use this for instance when running 32bit compiles started from inside a Perl program in a 32bit chroot but running on a 64bit host kernel. Without hints the compile tools get confused and try do do 64bit in the 32bit environment.

It's somewhat comparable to the setarch (also known as linux32) utility. With personality you can get similar effect inside a Perl program.

From "man 2 personality":

 NAME
        personality - set the process execution domain
 
 SYNOPSIS
        #include <sys/personality.h>
        int personality(unsigned long persona);
 
 DESCRIPTION
        Linux supports different execution domains, or personalities,
        for each process.  Among other things, execution domains tell
        Linux how to map signal numbers into signal actions.  The
        execution domain system allows Linux to provide limited
        support for binaries compiled under other Unix-like operating
        systems.

        This function will return the current personality() when
        persona equals 0xffffffff.  Otherwise, it will make the
        execution domain referenced by persona the new execution
        domain of the calling process.
 
 RETURN VALUE
        On success, the previous persona is returned.  On error, -1 is
        returned, and errno is set appropriately.
 
 ERRORS
        EINVAL The kernel was unable to change the personality.
 
 CONFORMING TO
        personality() is Linux-specific and should not be used in
        programs intended to be portable.

EXPORT

None by default.

Exportable functions

  personality

Exportable constants

  ADDR_LIMIT_32BIT
  ADDR_LIMIT_3GB
  ADDR_NO_RANDOMIZE
  MMAP_PAGE_ZERO
  PER_BSD
  PER_HPUX
  PER_IRIX32
  PER_IRIX64
  PER_IRIXN32
  PER_ISCR4
  PER_LINUX
  PER_LINUX32
  PER_LINUX32_3GB
  PER_LINUX_32BIT
  PER_MASK
  PER_OSF4
  PER_OSR5
  PER_RISCOS
  PER_SCOSVR3
  PER_SOLARIS
  PER_SUNOS
  PER_SVR3
  PER_SVR4
  PER_UW7
  PER_WYSEV386
  PER_XENIX
  SHORT_INODE
  STICKY_TIMEOUTS
  WHOLE_SECONDS

SEE ALSO

 man 2 personality
 /usr/include/sys/personality.h

AUTHOR

Steffen Schwigon, <ss5@renormalist.net>

CREDITS

Maik Hentsche <maik.hentsche@amd.com> for having the problem in the first place and digging the according solution.

Florian Ragwitz <rafl@debian.org> for the usual Perl low-level support.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2010 by Steffen Schwigon

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.10.1 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.