COMPAT_NETBSD32(8)

NAME
compat_netbsd32 - setup procedure for 32-bit compatibility on 64-bit platforms

DESCRIPTION
The compat_netbsd32 module allows NetBSD/sparc64 to run NetBSD/sparc executables, and NetBSD/amd64 to run NetBSD/i386 executables.

To use compat_netbsd32, one must either have COMPAT_NETBSD32 and EXEC_ELF32 in the kernel, or load the compat_netbsd32 and exec_netbsd32 kernel modules.

Static executables typically need no additional setup. Dynamic binaries require the dynamic linker plus shared libraries. Most of these files will need to be placed under /emul/netbsd32.

The easiest method of installing support for these is via the emulators/netbsd32_compat14, emulators/netbsd32_compat15, and emulators/netbsd32_compat16 packages, provided in the NetBSD packages collection. These install 32-bit a.out and ELF compatibility libraries, respectively. The details of what is actually necessary for correct operation are given below. This obviously is handled by the emulator packages.

For a.out compatibility, /usr/libexec/ld.so from a 32-bit distribution is required to exist as /emul/netbsd32/usr/libexec/ld.so. For 32-bit ELF compatibility, /usr/libexec/ld.elf_so needs to be in /emul/netbsd32/usr/libexec/ld.elf_so.

The shared libraries for a.out binaries do not live under the /emul/netbsd32 directory, but under the /emul/aout directory, where the a.out dynamic linker will find them.

BUGS
A list of things which fail to work in compatibility mode should be here.

IPC is not well supported.

sysctl(3) is not well supported.