Undefined reference to in os kernel linking - c

Question

i have a problem. I making simple OS kernel with this tutorial: http://wiki.osdev.org/Bare_Bones#Linking_the_Kernel
but,if i want to link files boot.o and kernel.o, gcc compiler returns this error:
boot.o: In function `start':
boot.asm:(.text+0x6): undefined reference to `kernel_main'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status.
sources of files:
boot.asm
; Declare constants used for creating a multiboot header.
MBALIGN equ 1<<0 ; align loaded modules on page boundaries
MEMINFO equ 1<<1 ; provide memory map
FLAGS equ MBALIGN | MEMINFO ; this is the Multiboot 'flag' field
MAGIC equ 0x1BADB002 ; 'magic number' lets bootloader find the header
CHECKSUM equ -(MAGIC + FLAGS) ; checksum of above, to prove we are multiboot
; Declare a header as in the Multiboot Standard. We put this into a special
; section so we can force the header to be in the start of the final program.
; You don't need to understand all these details as it is just magic values that
; is documented in the multiboot standard. The bootloader will search for this
; magic sequence and recognize us as a multiboot kernel.
section .multiboot
align 4
dd MAGIC
dd FLAGS
dd CHECKSUM
; Currently the stack pointer register (esp) points at anything and using it may
; cause massive harm. Instead, we'll provide our own stack. We will allocate
; room for a small temporary stack by creating a symbol at the bottom of it,
; then allocating 16384 bytes for it, and finally creating a symbol at the top.
section .bootstrap_stack
align 4
stack_bottom:
times 16384 db 0
stack_top:
; The linker script specifies _start as the entry point to the kernel and the
; bootloader will jump to this position once the kernel has been loaded. It
; doesn't make sense to return from this function as the bootloader is gone.
section .text
global _start
_start:
; Welcome to kernel mode! We now have sufficient code for the bootloader to
; load and run our operating system. It doesn't do anything interesting yet.
; Perhaps we would like to call printf("Hello, World\n"). You should now
; realize one of the profound truths about kernel mode: There is nothing
; there unless you provide it yourself. There is no printf function. There
; is no <stdio.h> header. If you want a function, you will have to code it
; yourself. And that is one of the best things about kernel development:
; you get to make the entire system yourself. You have absolute and complete
; power over the machine, there are no security restrictions, no safe
; guards, no debugging mechanisms, there is nothing but what you build.
; By now, you are perhaps tired of assembly language. You realize some
; things simply cannot be done in C, such as making the multiboot header in
; the right section and setting up the stack. However, you would like to
; write the operating system in a higher level language, such as C or C++.
; To that end, the next task is preparing the processor for execution of
; such code. C doesn't expect much at this point and we only need to set up
; a stack. Note that the processor is not fully initialized yet and stuff
; such as floating point instructions are not available yet.
; To set up a stack, we simply set the esp register to point to the top of
; our stack (as it grows downwards).
mov esp, stack_top
; We are now ready to actually execute C code. We cannot embed that in an
; assembly file, so we'll create a kernel.c file in a moment. In that file,
; we'll create a C entry point called kernel_main and call it here.
extern kernel_main
call kernel_main
; In case the function returns, we'll want to put the computer into an
; infinite loop. To do that, we use the clear interrupt ('cli') instruction
; to disable interrupts, the halt instruction ('hlt') to stop the CPU until
; the next interrupt arrives, and jumping to the halt instruction if it ever
; continues execution, just to be safe.
cli
.hang:
hlt
jmp .hang
kernel.c
#if !defined(__cplusplus)
#include <stdbool.h> /* C doesn't have booleans by default. */
#endif
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdint.h>
/* Check if the compiler thinks if we are targeting the wrong operating system. */
#if defined(__linux__)
#error "You are not using a cross-compiler, you will most certainly run into trouble"
#endif
/* This tutorial will only work for the 32-bit ix86 targets. */
#if !defined(__i386__)
#error "This tutorial needs to be compiled with a ix86-elf compiler"
#endif
/* Hardware text mode color constants. */
enum vga_color
{
COLOR_BLACK = 0,
COLOR_BLUE = 1,
COLOR_GREEN = 2,
COLOR_CYAN = 3,
COLOR_RED = 4,
COLOR_MAGENTA = 5,
COLOR_BROWN = 6,
COLOR_LIGHT_GREY = 7,
COLOR_DARK_GREY = 8,
COLOR_LIGHT_BLUE = 9,
COLOR_LIGHT_GREEN = 10,
COLOR_LIGHT_CYAN = 11,
COLOR_LIGHT_RED = 12,
COLOR_LIGHT_MAGENTA = 13,
COLOR_LIGHT_BROWN = 14,
COLOR_WHITE = 15,
};
uint8_t make_color(enum vga_color fg, enum vga_color bg)
{
return fg | bg << 4;
}
uint16_t make_vgaentry(char c, uint8_t color)
{
uint16_t c16 = c;
uint16_t color16 = color;
return c16 | color16 << 8;
}
size_t strlen(const char* str)
{
size_t ret = 0;
while ( str[ret] != 0 )
ret++;
return ret;
}
static const size_t VGA_WIDTH = 80;
static const size_t VGA_HEIGHT = 25;
size_t terminal_row;
size_t terminal_column;
uint8_t terminal_color;
uint16_t* terminal_buffer;
void terminal_initialize()
{
terminal_row = 0;
terminal_column = 0;
terminal_color = make_color(COLOR_LIGHT_GREY, COLOR_BLACK);
terminal_buffer = (uint16_t*) 0xB8000;
for ( size_t y = 0; y < VGA_HEIGHT; y++ )
{
for ( size_t x = 0; x < VGA_WIDTH; x++ )
{
const size_t index = y * VGA_WIDTH + x;
terminal_buffer[index] = make_vgaentry(' ', terminal_color);
}
}
}
void terminal_setcolor(uint8_t color)
{
terminal_color = color;
}
void terminal_putentryat(char c, uint8_t color, size_t x, size_t y)
{
const size_t index = y * VGA_WIDTH + x;
terminal_buffer[index] = make_vgaentry(c, color);
}
void terminal_putchar(char c)
{
terminal_putentryat(c, terminal_color, terminal_column, terminal_row);
if ( ++terminal_column == VGA_WIDTH )
{
terminal_column = 0;
if ( ++terminal_row == VGA_HEIGHT )
{
terminal_row = 0;
}
}
}
void terminal_writestring(const char* data)
{
size_t datalen = strlen(data);
for ( size_t i = 0; i < datalen; i++ )
terminal_putchar(data[i]);
}
void kernel_main()
{
terminal_initialize();
/* Since there is no support for newlines in terminal_putchar yet, \n will
produce some VGA specific character instead. This is normal. */
terminal_writestring("Hello\n");
}

Answer 1

It looks like you’re using GCC on Microsoft® Windows® (for example, with Cygwin), judging from the collect2.exe reference. This means your native executable format, which you appear to be using, prepends an underscore to C identifiers to keep them separate from assembly identifiers, which is something most object formats, but not the ELF format wide-spread under modern Unix, does.
If you change your call to _kernel_main, the link error will likely go away.
But please note this line, quoted from your question:
#error "This tutorial needs to be compiled with a ix86-elf compiler"
You’re violating a basic tenet of the tutorial you’re using. I suggest you get a GNU/Linux or BSD VM for i386 (32-bit), and run the tutorial within that.