kernel/linux.git/tools/objtool/objtool.c, branch v6.19.11

objtool: Add more robust signal error handling, detect and warn about stack overflows

2025-12-03T18:42:37+00:00

When the kernel build fails due to an objtool segfault, the error message is a bit obtuse and confusing: make[5]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:503: drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla2xxx.o] Error 139 ^^^^^^^^^ make[5]: *** Deleting file 'drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla2xxx.o' make[4]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:556: drivers/scsi/qla2xxx] Error 2 make[3]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:556: drivers/scsi] Error 2 make[2]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:556: drivers] Error 2 make[1]: *** [/home/jpoimboe/git/linux/Makefile:2013: .] Error 2 make: *** [Makefile:248: __sub-make] Error 2 Add a signal handler to objtool which prints an error message like if the local stack has overflown (for which there's a chance as objtool makes heavy use of recursion): drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla2xxx.o: error: SIGSEGV: objtool stack overflow! or: drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla2xxx.o: error: SIGSEGV: objtool crash! Also, re-raise the signal so the core dump still gets triggered. [ mingo: Applied a build fix, added more comments and prettified the code. ] Suggested-by: Ingo Molnar Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar Cc: Alexandre Chartre Cc: David Laight Cc: Linus Torvalds Cc: Nathan Chancellor Cc: Peter Zijlstra Link: https://patch.msgid.link/mi4tihk4dbncn7belrhp6ooudhpw4vdggerktu5333w3gqf3uf@vqlhc3y667mg

objtool/klp: Add --debug option to show cloning decisions

2025-10-14T21:50:18+00:00

Add a --debug option to klp diff which prints cloning decisions and an indented dependency tree for all cloned symbols and relocations. This helps visualize which symbols and relocations were included and why. Acked-by: Petr Mladek Tested-by: Joe Lawrence Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf

objtool/klp: Introduce klp diff subcommand for diffing object files

2025-10-14T21:50:18+00:00

Add a new klp diff subcommand which performs a binary diff between two object files and extracts changed functions into a new object which can then be linked into a livepatch module. This builds on concepts from the longstanding out-of-tree kpatch [1] project which began in 2012 and has been used for many years to generate livepatch modules for production kernels. However, this is a complete rewrite which incorporates hard-earned lessons from 12+ years of maintaining kpatch. Key improvements compared to kpatch-build: - Integrated with objtool: Leverages objtool's existing control-flow graph analysis to help detect changed functions. - Works on vmlinux.o: Supports late-linked objects, making it compatible with LTO, IBT, and similar. - Simplified code base: ~3k fewer lines of code. - Upstream: No more out-of-tree #ifdef hacks, far less cruft. - Cleaner internals: Vastly simplified logic for symbol/section/reloc inclusion and special section extraction. - Robust __LINE__ macro handling: Avoids false positive binary diffs caused by the __LINE__ macro by introducing a fix-patch-lines script (coming in a later patch) which injects #line directives into the source .patch to preserve the original line numbers at compile time. Note the end result of this subcommand is not yet functionally complete. Livepatch needs some ELF magic which linkers don't like: - Two relocation sections (.rela*, .klp.rela*) for the same text section. - Use of SHN_LIVEPATCH to mark livepatch symbols. Unfortunately linkers tend to mangle such things. To work around that, klp diff generates a linker-compliant intermediate binary which encodes the relevant KLP section/reloc/symbol metadata. After module linking, a klp post-link step (coming soon) will clean up the mess and convert the linked .ko into a fully compliant livepatch module. Note this subcommand requires the diffed binaries to have been compiled with -ffunction-sections and -fdata-sections, and processed with 'objtool --checksum'. Those constraints will be handled by a klp-build script introduced in a later patch. Without '-ffunction-sections -fdata-sections', reliable object diffing would be infeasible due to toolchain limitations: - For intra-file+intra-section references, the compiler might occasionally generated hard-coded instruction offsets instead of relocations. - Section-symbol-based references can be ambiguous: - Overlapping or zero-length symbols create ambiguity as to which symbol is being referenced. - A reference to the end of a symbol (e.g., checking array bounds) can be misinterpreted as a reference to the next symbol, or vice versa. A potential future alternative to '-ffunction-sections -fdata-sections' would be to introduce a toolchain option that forces symbol-based (non-section) relocations. Acked-by: Petr Mladek Tested-by: Joe Lawrence Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf

objtool: Change "warning:" to "error: " for fatal errors

2025-04-01T07:07:13+00:00

This is similar to GCC's behavior and makes it more obvious why the build failed. Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar Cc: Linus Torvalds Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/0ea76f4b0e7a370711ed9f75fd0792bb5979c2bf.1743481539.git.jpoimboe@kernel.org

objtool: Improve error handling

2025-03-25T08:20:27+00:00

Fix some error handling issues, improve error messages, properly distinguish betwee errors and warnings, and generally try to make all the error handling more consistent. Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar Cc: Linus Torvalds Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/3094bb4463dad29b6bd1bea03848d1571ace771c.1742852846.git.jpoimboe@kernel.org

objtool: Create backup on error and print args

2025-03-17T10:36:02+00:00

Recreating objtool errors can be a manual process. Kbuild removes the object, so it has to be compiled or linked again before running objtool. Then the objtool args need to be reversed engineered. Make that all easier by automatically making a backup of the object file on error, and print a modified version of the args which can be used to recreate. Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/7571e30636359b3e173ce6e122419452bb31882f.1741975349.git.jpoimboe@kernel.org

objtool: Add --output option

2025-03-17T10:36:01+00:00

Add option to allow writing the changed binary to a separate file rather than changing it in place. Libelf makes this suprisingly hard, so take the easy way out and just copy the file before editing it. Also steal the -o short option from --orc. Nobody will notice ;-) Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/0da308d42d82b3bbed16a31a72d6bde52afcd6bd.1741975349.git.jpoimboe@kernel.org

objtool: Propagate early errors

2023-10-06T00:01:11+00:00

If objtool runs into a problem that causes it to exit early, the overall tool still returns a status code of 0, which causes the build to continue as if nothing went wrong. Note this only affects early errors, as later errors are still ignored by check(). Fixes: b51277eb9775 ("objtool: Ditch subcommands") Signed-off-by: Aaron Plattner Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/cb6a28832d24b2ebfafd26da9abb95f874c83045.1696355111.git.aplattner@nvidia.com Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf

objtool: Remove instruction::list

2023-02-23T08:21:44+00:00

Replace the instruction::list by allocating instructions in arrays of 256 entries and stringing them together by (amortized) find_insn(). This shrinks instruction by 16 bytes and brings it down to 128. struct instruction { - struct list_head list; /* 0 16 */ - struct hlist_node hash; /* 16 16 */ - struct list_head call_node; /* 32 16 */ - struct section * sec; /* 48 8 */ - long unsigned int offset; /* 56 8 */ - /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */ - long unsigned int immediate; /* 64 8 */ - unsigned int len; /* 72 4 */ - u8 type; /* 76 1 */ - - /* Bitfield combined with previous fields */ + struct hlist_node hash; /* 0 16 */ + struct list_head call_node; /* 16 16 */ + struct section * sec; /* 32 8 */ + long unsigned int offset; /* 40 8 */ + long unsigned int immediate; /* 48 8 */ + u8 len; /* 56 1 */ + u8 prev_len; /* 57 1 */ + u8 type; /* 58 1 */ + s8 instr; /* 59 1 */ + u32 idx:8; /* 60: 0 4 */ + u32 dead_end:1; /* 60: 8 4 */ + u32 ignore:1; /* 60: 9 4 */ + u32 ignore_alts:1; /* 60:10 4 */ + u32 hint:1; /* 60:11 4 */ + u32 save:1; /* 60:12 4 */ + u32 restore:1; /* 60:13 4 */ + u32 retpoline_safe:1; /* 60:14 4 */ + u32 noendbr:1; /* 60:15 4 */ + u32 entry:1; /* 60:16 4 */ + u32 visited:4; /* 60:17 4 */ + u32 no_reloc:1; /* 60:21 4 */ - u16 dead_end:1; /* 76: 8 2 */ - u16 ignore:1; /* 76: 9 2 */ - u16 ignore_alts:1; /* 76:10 2 */ - u16 hint:1; /* 76:11 2 */ - u16 save:1; /* 76:12 2 */ - u16 restore:1; /* 76:13 2 */ - u16 retpoline_safe:1; /* 76:14 2 */ - u16 noendbr:1; /* 76:15 2 */ - u16 entry:1; /* 78: 0 2 */ - u16 visited:4; /* 78: 1 2 */ - u16 no_reloc:1; /* 78: 5 2 */ + /* XXX 10 bits hole, try to pack */ - /* XXX 2 bits hole, try to pack */ - /* Bitfield combined with next fields */ - - s8 instr; /* 79 1 */ - struct alt_group * alt_group; /* 80 8 */ - struct instruction * jump_dest; /* 88 8 */ - struct instruction * first_jump_src; /* 96 8 */ + /* --- cacheline 1 boundary (64 bytes) --- */ + struct alt_group * alt_group; /* 64 8 */ + struct instruction * jump_dest; /* 72 8 */ + struct instruction * first_jump_src; /* 80 8 */ union { - struct symbol * _call_dest; /* 104 8 */ - struct reloc * _jump_table; /* 104 8 */ - }; /* 104 8 */ - struct alternative * alts; /* 112 8 */ - struct symbol * sym; /* 120 8 */ - /* --- cacheline 2 boundary (128 bytes) --- */ - struct stack_op * stack_ops; /* 128 8 */ - struct cfi_state * cfi; /* 136 8 */ + struct symbol * _call_dest; /* 88 8 */ + struct reloc * _jump_table; /* 88 8 */ + }; /* 88 8 */ + struct alternative * alts; /* 96 8 */ + struct symbol * sym; /* 104 8 */ + struct stack_op * stack_ops; /* 112 8 */ + struct cfi_state * cfi; /* 120 8 */ - /* size: 144, cachelines: 3, members: 28 */ - /* sum members: 142 */ - /* sum bitfield members: 14 bits, bit holes: 1, sum bit holes: 2 bits */ - /* last cacheline: 16 bytes */ + /* size: 128, cachelines: 2, members: 29 */ + /* sum members: 124 */ + /* sum bitfield members: 22 bits, bit holes: 1, sum bit holes: 10 bits */ }; pre: 5:38.18 real, 213.25 user, 124.90 sys, 23449040 mem post: 5:03.34 real, 210.75 user, 88.80 sys, 20241232 mem Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Tested-by: Nathan Chancellor # build only Tested-by: Thomas Weißschuh # compile and run Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230208172245.851307606@infradead.org

objtool: Add .call_sites section

2022-10-17T14:41:07+00:00

In preparation for call depth tracking provide a section which collects all direct calls. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220915111146.016511961@infradead.org