Assembly Programming

Assembly is about as close as you can get to machine code. There are many Assembly compilers out there. nasm is one compiler that is available across platforms and can be used to program x86 processors.

Use interrupt 0x80 to make Linux system calls like reading and writing to file descriptors and sockets. For a list of system calls in Linux, run man syscalls or refer to an online man page like https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/syscalls.2.html. To get the actual number, try to find the unistd.h file. For example, in Debian, /usr/include/asm-generic/unistd.h has all of the statements that define the syscall numbers (NR). Or, refer to the source code of Linux (pick the right branch) https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v4.17/arch/x86/entry/syscalls/syscall_64.tbl and https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v4.17/arch/x86/entry/syscalls/syscall_32.tbl.

Here is an example of compiling with nasm:

nasm -f elf64 file.asm 
# or for 32-bit
nasm -f elf file.asm

If you need to link against something you can use:

ln -d -o outfile file.o

Here is a Hello World example:

hello.asm

SECTION .DATA
	hello:     db 'Hello world!',10
	helloLen:  equ $-hello
 
SECTION .TEXT
	GLOBAL _start 
 
_start:
	mov eax,4            ; 'write' system call = 4
	mov ebx,2            ; file descriptor 1 = STDOUT
	mov ecx,hello        ; string to write
	mov edx,helloLen     ; length of string to write
	int 80h              ; call the kernel
 
	; Terminate program
	mov eax,1            ; 'exit' system call
	mov ebx,0            ; exit with error code 0
	int 80h              ; call the kernel

Compile and run with:

# Compile
nasm -f elf64 hello.asm -o hello.o
 
# Link
ld hello.o -o hello
 
# Run
./hello

Use interrupt 0x21 to make DOS system calls like reading and writing files. For a list of DOS system calls, refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_API

When interacting with the BIOS, you use a different system call for each function. BIOS will have less system calls available than an kernel like DOS or Linux, but it gives you the tools you need to build an operating system. For example, BIOS will let you change the video mode, get input from keyboard, write text to screen, and draw pixels on the screen.

For a list of BIOS system calls, refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_interrupt_call.

You can write and compile libraries that can be linked against by other programs.

This example shows how to create a function called print_hello() that can be used from other Assembly or C programs.

static_lib.asm

; Compile this program using
; nasm -f elf64 static_lib.asm 
; gcc myprogram.c static_lib.o
; ./a.out
 
SECTION .DATA
	hello:     db 'Hello world!',10
	helloLen:  equ $-hello
 
SECTION .TEXT
	GLOBAL print_hello
 
print_hello:
	mov eax,4            ; 'write' system call = 4
	mov ebx,2            ; file descriptor 1 = STDOUT
	mov ecx,hello        ; string to write
	mov edx,helloLen     ; length of string to write
	int 80h              ; call the kernel
 
	; Terminate program
	mov eax,1            ; 'exit' system call
	mov ebx,0            ; exit with error code 0
	int 80h              ; call the kernel

By creating a main() function, we can make an executable instead of a library.

c_main.asm

; Because we have a reference to 'main'
; we can compile with nasm to create the
; .o object file, and then compile that with
; gcc. Example
; nasm -f elf64 c_main.asm 
; gcc c_main.o
; ./a.out
 
SECTION .DATA
	hello:     db 'Hello world!',10
	helloLen:  equ $-hello
 
SECTION .TEXT
	GLOBAL main
 
main:
	mov eax,4            ; 'write' system call = 4
	mov ebx,2            ; file descriptor 1 = STDOUT
	mov ecx,hello        ; string to write
	mov edx,helloLen     ; length of string to write
	int 80h              ; call the kernel
 
	; Terminate program
	mov eax,1            ; 'exit' system call
	mov ebx,0            ; exit with error code 0
	int 80h              ; call the kernel

And compile and run with:

nasm -f elf64 c_main.asm 
gcc c_main.o
./a.out

example.c

/* example.c */
/* Compile and run with `gcc example.c say_hi.o -o hello` */
#include <stdio.h>
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
	extern say_hi();
	say_hi();
}

Next, compile and link the C program with gcc. Do that with:

gcc example.c say_hi.o -o hello

You can then run the hello program that was just created.

./hello

You can call C functions from Assembly as well. This example calls printf(). In the main function, we push and pop the stack and put our operations in between. We move all the parameters in to the appropriate registers, and then we call the function.

printf.asm

; printf.asm
; Define printf as an external function
extern	printf
 
SECTION .DATA
    msg:	db "Hello world", 0 ; Zero is Null terminator 
    fmt:    db "%s", 10, 0 ; printf format string follow by a newline(10) and a null terminator(0), "\n",'0'
 
SECTION .TEXT
    global main
 
main:
    push rbp ; Push stack
 
    ; Set up parameters and call the C function
    mov	rdi,fmt
    mov	rsi,msg
    mov	rax,0
    call printf
 
    pop	rbp		; Pop stack
 
    mov	rax,0	; Exit code 0
    ret			; Return

Compile and run that with:

nasm printf.asm -f elf64 -o printf.o
gcc printf.o
./a.out