witch_t *naviJul 24, 2025
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33051108/how-to-get-around-the-linux-too-many-arguments-limit/33278482

> I have to pass 256Kb of text as an argument to the "aws sqs"

what, uhhh, what

> MAX_ARG_STRLEN is defined as 32 times the page size in linux/include/uapi/linux/binfmts.h:
> The default page size is 4 KB so you cannot pass arguments longer than 128 KB.
> I modified linux/include/uapi/linux/binfmts.h to #define MAX_ARG_STRLEN (PAGE_SIZE * 64), recompiled my kernel and now your code produces

casually patching the kernel to send a quarter megabyte as a *single* argument oh my god i'm laughing hard
Show threadkloenkJul 24, 2025
@navi well in the early rust for Linux days we hit this limit with the passing kconfig options to rustc. Fun times
Show threadLaurent BercotJul 24, 2025

@kloenk @navi Back when 128 kB was the limit for argv+envp, Google was hitting it too because they passed all the configuration for their whole software stack on the command line as --long-option=value switches.

Their solution? Compress the command line. So every binary started by ungzipping argv[1] and parsing it to get the configuration.

The person explaining this to me saw my horrified face, and said with the perfect Hide The Pain Harold smile: "a series of individually completely rational and reasonable decisions led to this." and I have been thinking a lot about it since.

Show threadThe Cat CollectiveJul 24, 2025
@ska @kloenk @navi What the hell did I just read oh my god, that is TERRIFYING. Yet that is also so ingenious that I don't know how to feel about it

-James
Show threadLaurent BercotJul 24, 2025
@thecatcollective @navi @kloenk "Brilliant and cursed" applies to way too much software, and I want the exact opposite of that - I want things that work dumbly, simply, elegantly, and that can be understood by mere mortals.
Show threadkloenkJul 24, 2025
@ska @thecatcollective @navi isn’t technically a OS not being able to be written with C as the C spec defines some required things as UB? So yes that would be nice but sometimes fear we might need new abstraction for some of those types of software we have
Show threadLaurent Bercot

@kloenk @thecatcollective @navi I don't think the permissiveness of C has anything to do with the beatitude (in the NetHack sense) of a piece of code. C is underspecified, yes, because it's old and used for a lot of various things including kernels and drivers and stuff where it's essentially used as a glamorized assembly language.
IO coding with C is generally very pedestrian, not anything brilliant at all, and not especially cursed either, it just... is.

No, I am referring to high-brained solutions to problems you would never have had if your design wasn't made by and FOR high-brained programmers.

Jul 24, 2025 at 3:47pmWeb