GNU/Linux x86 platform support

When you want to build and experiment with x86 (32-bit) based binaries on an x64 based linux kernel. This is often useful for reverse engineering and exploit proof of concepts, as x86 offers a number of simplicities over x64.

On Kali (or I assume anything else debian based) add overall subsystem support with:

dpkg --add-architecture i386

Then to get a working development environment:

apt update
apt install libc-dev-i386-cross gdb-multiarch execstack gdb-peda lib32tinfo6 lib32ncurses6 lib32ncurses-dev gcc-7

You should be good to start compiling for an x86 target. Make sure to add -m32 to any CFLAGS and LDFLAGS parameters in the Makefile.

For example, to get a 32-bit build of ImageMagick, use the configure script with CFLAGS options to:

• add debug symbols with ggdb
• x86 with m32
• level 0 optimisations with O0

Like so:

./configure CXXFLAGS="-ggdb -m32 -O0" CFLAGS="-ggdb -m32 -fno-pie -O0"
make -j 4

Wait a few minutes for the new build to finish, and verify it worked.

root@kali:~/Downloads/ImageMagick-6.9.2-10/utilities/.libs# ./convert --version
Version: ImageMagick 6.9.2-10 Q16 x86_64 2019-09-28 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2016 ImageMagick Studio LLC
License: http://www.imagemagick.org/script/license.php
Features: Cipher DPC OpenMP 
Delegates (built-in):