Hello x64 Part II

This is the same as the previous x64 Hello World program, but with x64 instructions instead. The first part used the x86 kernel calls and it worked too, but in x64 mode, we should use the x64 system calls instead.

x64 System Calls

The System Call Table provides you with the information you need on how to call a specific system function whereas the function in general is called like this:

mov rax, SYSCALL_NUM
mov rdi, arg1
mov rsi, arg2
mov rdx, arg3
syscall

This saves the return address in RCX and the RFLAGS in R11 as per syscall documentation.

ASM Code

hello64.asm

segment .data                   ;section declaration

msg db     "Hello, world!", 0xA, 0x0 ;our NULL-terminated string, ending with 0xA (lf) or 0xD (CR)
len equ     $ - msg             ;length of our string

segment .text                   ;section declaration

                                ;we must export the entry point to the ELF linker or loader
    global  asm_main

pushaq:     ; push all registers
    enter 0,0
    push rax
    push rcx
    push rdx
    push rbx
    push rbp
    push rsi
    push rdi
    push  r8
    push  r9
    push r10
    push r11
    push r12
    push r13
    push r14
    push r15
    leave
    ret

popaq:      ; pop back all registers in the complementary order
    enter 0,0
    pop r15
    pop r14
    pop r13
    pop r12
    pop r11
    pop r10
    pop  r9
    pop  r8
    pop rdi    
    pop rsi    
    pop rbp    
    pop rbx    
    pop rdx    
    pop rcx
    pop rax
    leave
    ret

                ;entry point.
asm_main:
    enter 0,0
    call pushaq

                                ;write string to stdout
    mov     rdx,len             ;third argument: message length
    mov     rsi,msg             ;second argument: pointer to message to write
    mov     rdi,1               ;first argument: file handle (stdout)
    mov     rax,1               ;system call number (sys_write)
    syscall                ;call kernel

    call popaq                       ; return to the C caller with 0 status, sets rax 0, but C will only receive eax part as returning `int`
    xor rax, rax                      ; doing same as `mov rax, 0`
    leave
    ret

Compilation

Get the 64-bit driver

$ mv driver.c driver64.c
$ gcc -c driver64.c

Compile and link programm

$ nasm -f elf64 hello64.asm
$ gcc -o hello64 driver64.o hello64.o

Execution

After compiling to hello64.o and hello, we can now run the program.

$ ./hello64
Hello World!