RFR: 8206890: jlink --endian XXX generates unusable image if endian-ness does not match architecture

[Jim Laskey]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2023 13:19:32 GMT, Jaikiran Pai <jpai at openjdk.org> wrote:

> Can I please get a review for this change which proposes to fix the issue reported in https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8206890?
> 
> The `jlink` command allows a `--endian` option to specify the byte order in the generated image. Before this change, when such a image was being launched, the code would assume the byte order in the image to be the native order of the host where the image is being launched. That would result in failure to launch java, as noted in the linked issue.
> 
> The commit in this PR, changes relevant places to not assume native order and instead determine the byte order by reading the magic bytes in the image file's header content.
> 
> A new jtreg test has been added which reproduces the issue and verifies the fix.

I'm in agreement with Alan that this change seems suspicious. That is, you should not attempt to run with non-native byte order.  That said, I can see where the java reader could read non-native as an analysis tool. So,  C code should continue to be an error if not the native byte order. The java code, might be useful for tools but not sure.

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PR: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/11943