---
name: "arch-test"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "arch-test"
version: "0.22-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/arch-test"
---

# arch-test(1)

detect architectures your kernel can run binaries of

## NAME

arch-test - detect architectures your kernel can run binaries of

## SYNOPSIS

- **arch-test** \[**-n**\]

  enumerates the architectures

- **arch-test** \[**-n**\] \[**-c** ***\<chroot\>***\] *\<arch\>*

  tests a single arch

## DESCRIPTION

When called without an argument, **arch-test** outputs the list of architectures executable by your running kernel, one per line, using Debian arch names.  *Libc* or other libraries are neither needed nor checked — an arch is listed if its machine code can be executed and the appropriate syscall ABI is supported by the kernel.  This means, you can run these architectures in a *chroot* or a container, execute them using multiarch, run static binaries, etc.  The ability to run additional architectures can be gained via *binfmt*s on Linux, Linux emulation on BSD, etc.

An architecture is considered runnable only if your kernel can run *unmodified* binaries, without extra steps such as recompiling (Raspbian armhf) or using **brandelf** on binaries you'd want to run (FreeBSD emulation of Linux).  Also, as Debian requires 686 on i386 as of the stretch release, 686 support is checked for.

If **-n** is specified, **arch-test** will try to disable known emulators (currently **qemu** and **wine**).  Note that a whole-machine emulator appears to be native as far as the kernel is concerned.

With **-c** *\<chroot\>*, the test is done inside a given chroot (qemu-user before 2.12 required the interpreter to live *inside* the chroot).  Root privileges are required here.

When called with an arch name as an argument, **arch-test** tests the specified architecture.  A human-friendly message will be printed, and the exit code can be:

- **0**

  congratulations, the arch can be run on your kernel

- **1**

  failure

- **2**

  cannot check — **arch-test** lacks a helper for this arch

- (Shell hint: with *set -e* you write: *ret=0; arch-test $ARCH \|\| ret=$?*)

  ### Helper programs

The detection is done by small programs located in */usr/libexec/arch-test/*.  These programs check whether the running kernel can execute binaries of a given architecture.  When run, if successful, each such program prints *"ok"* on stdout and returns exit code 0.

When the check fails, these helper programs may die horribly — always with a non-zero exit code.  Usually the kernel will notice the incompatibility and nicely abort the attempt, but in some near-miss cases the failure is more messy, such as *SIGILL* or *SIGSEGV*.  If you want to run the helpers directly, you'd want to redirect *stderr* to */dev/null* and to disable core dumps (**ulimit -c 0**).