Answer by Joseph Sible for Unexpected exec permission from mmap when assembly files included in the project

Linux has an execution domain called READ_IMPLIES_EXEC, which causes all pages allocated with PROT_READ to also be given PROT_EXEC. This program will show you whether that's enabled for itself:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/personality.h>

int main(void) {
    printf("Read-implies-exec is %s\n", personality(0xffffffff) & READ_IMPLIES_EXEC ? "true" : "false");
    return 0;
}

If you compile that along with an empty .s file, you'll see that it's enabled, but without one, it'll be disabled. The initial value of this comes from the ELF meta-information in your binary. Do readelf -Wl example. You'll see this line when you compiled without the empty .s file:

  GNU_STACK      0x000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x000000 0x000000 RW  0x10

But this one when you compiled with it:

  GNU_STACK      0x000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x000000 0x000000 RWE 0x10

Note RWE instead of just RW. The reason for this is that the linker assumes that your assembly files require read-implies-exec unless it's explicitly told that they don't, and if any part of your program requires read-implies-exec, then it's enabled for your whole program. The assembly files that GCC compiles tell it that it doesn't need this, with this line (you'll see this if you compile with -S):

        .section        .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits

Put that line in example.s, and it will serve to tell the linker that it doesn't need it either, and your program will then work as expected.