ITPUB

Mar 3, 2021 · Fundamentals

How Linux Starts Your Program: Inside execve, the Loader, and the Dynamic Linker

From the moment a user types a command in the shell to the final exit of the program, this article walks through Linux’s execution pipeline—including shell command parsing, fork, execve, kernel loading via load_elf_binary, the dynamic linker’s role, and the glibc startup sequence—illustrated with detailed diagrams and code snippets.