"no debugging symbols found" for a freestanding application

[Anatol Pomozov <anatol dot pomozov at gmail dot com>]

Hello

I am trying to build a freestanding statically linked x86_64 binary. I
have LinkTimeOptimization enabled.

Here is example of *.c compilation command line I use:

gcc -g -ggdb -flto -nostdlib -ffreestanding -std=c11
-fno-stack-protector -mno-red-zone -fomit-frame-pointer
-fno-math-errno -fno-trapping-math -fno-common -fno-PIC -fno-PIE
-static -W -Wall -Wextra -O3 -mtune=native -MMD -MQ foo.o -MF foo.o.d
-c foo.c -o foo.o


And here is the linked command line:

gcc -Wl,--build-id -Wl,-n -Wl,-Tlinker.ld -flto -nostdlib
-ffreestanding -fno-stack-protector -mno-red-zone -fomit-frame-pointer
-fno-math-errno -fno-trapping-math -fno-common -fno-PIC -fno-PIE
-static foo.o -o foo.elf

I enabled debug symbols using -g flag and see that ELF section is generated.

$ readelf -S foo.elf
There are 17 section headers, starting at offset 0x1a9f68:

Section Headers:
  [Nr] Name              Type             Address           Offset
       Size              EntSize          Flags  Link  Info  Align
  [ 0]                   NULL             0000000000000000  00000000
       0000000000000000  0000000000000000           0     0     0
  [ 1] .text             PROGBITS         0000000000100000  00001000
       00000000000169eb  0000000000000000  AX       0     0     16
  [ 2] .rodata           PROGBITS         0000000000116a00  00017a00
       000000000018e3a0  0000000000000000  WA       0     0     32
  [ 3] .data             PROGBITS         00000000002a4da0  001a5da0
       0000000000000014  0000000000000000  WA       0     0     4
  [ 4] .got.plt          PROGBITS         00000000002a4db8  001a5db8
       0000000000000018  0000000000000008  WA       0     0     8
  [ 5] .bss              NOBITS           00000000002a5000  001a5dd0
       00000000000040cc  0000000000000000  WA       0     0     4096
  [ 6] .tbss             NOBITS           00000000002a90d0  001a5dd0
       0000000000009c94  0000000000000000 WAT       0     0     16
  [ 7] .note.gnu.build-i NOTE             00000000002a90d0  001a5dd0
       0000000000000024  0000000000000000   A       0     0     4
  [ 8] .debug_line       PROGBITS         0000000000000000  001a5df4
       000000000000034e  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [ 9] .debug_info       PROGBITS         0000000000000000  001a6142
       0000000000000b92  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [10] .debug_abbrev     PROGBITS         0000000000000000  001a6cd4
       00000000000002dc  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [11] .debug_aranges    PROGBITS         0000000000000000  001a6fb0
       00000000000000a0  0000000000000000           0     0     16
  [12] .debug_str        PROGBITS         0000000000000000  001a7050
       0000000000000579  0000000000000001  MS       0     0     1
  [13] .debug_loc        PROGBITS         0000000000000000  001a75c9
       00000000000004e0  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [14] .symtab           SYMTAB           0000000000000000  001a7ab0
       00000000000016f8  0000000000000018          15   215     8
  [15] .strtab           STRTAB           0000000000000000  001a91a8
       0000000000000d1d  0000000000000000           0     0     1
  [16] .shstrtab         STRTAB           0000000000000000  001a9ec5
       00000000000000a1  0000000000000000           0     0     1


 It seems fine except that there are few "DW_FORM_strp offset too big" warnings.

  $ readelf -w foo.elf > /dev/null
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5b6
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 588
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 57a
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5ad
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5e5
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 602
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 598
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 592
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5fc
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 619
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5c4
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5bb
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 611
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5ee
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5d9
readelf: Warning: DW_FORM_strp offset too big: 5cd



When I try to load this file with gdb it says "no debuging symbols found"

$ gdb foo.elf
Type "apropos word" to search for commands related to "word"...
Reading symbols from app.elf...DW_FORM_strp pointing outside of
.debug_str section [in module /home/anatol/sources/foo.elf]
( )...done.


I tried to google answer to this question and there is no clear answer
to it. Some people say that it probably some issue between compiler
and linker. Or it might be related to my compilation flags
(freestanding + LTO). Does anyone have a suggestion how to debug this
issue?


My environment is Arch Linux with gcc 7.3.0 gdb 8.0.1 and binutils 2.29.1.