tell the assembler to mark all files as not requiring executable stack
for some reason this option is undocumented. not sure when it was
added, so I'm using a configure test. gcc was already setting the mark
correctly for C files, but assembler source files would need ugly
.note boilerplate in every single file to achieve this without the
option to the assembler.
blame whoever thought it would be a good idea to make the stack
executable by default rather than doing it the other way around...
diff --git a/configure b/configure
index 2969b95..9b06d2b 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -248,6 +248,13 @@
tryflag CFLAGS_AUTO -fno-asynchronous-unwind-tables
#
+# The GNU toolchain defaults to assuming unmarked files need an
+# executable stack, potentially exposing vulnerabilities in programs
+# linked with such object files. Fix this.
+#
+tryflag CFLAGS_AUTO -Wa,--noexecstack
+
+#
# Some optimization levels add bloated alignment that hurt performance
#
tryflag CFLAGS_AUTO -falign-functions=1