Your executable is a SQLite database

Your executable is a SQLite database Farid Zakaria describes a neat Linux pattern for creating a SQLite database file that can be directly used as an executable binary. The trick sets the SQLite file format's 4-byte application ID (68 bytes into the file) to SELF, standing for Structured Executable & Linkable Format. The various components of the ELF executable format are then arranged into a number of different SQLite tables, using this schema. Their self-exec interpreter (C code here) can then extract and execute the necessary pieces. You can additionally use a Linux mechanism called binfmt_misc to teach the kernel to execute that any time it encounters an executable matching that binary pattern. Farid uses NixOS here, but without NixOS I think registration looks something like this: printf '%s\n' ':self:M:68:SELF::/usr/local/bin/self-exec:' \ > /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register Via Hacker News Tags: c, linux, sqlite