From 522397d05e7d4a7c30b91841492360336b24f833 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ihor Solodrai Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 10:18:25 -0800 Subject: resolve_btfids: Change in-place update with raw binary output Currently resolve_btfids updates .BTF_ids section of an ELF file in-place, based on the contents of provided BTF, usually within the same input file, and optionally a BTF base. Change resolve_btfids behavior to enable BTF transformations as part of its main operation. To achieve this, in-place ELF write in resolve_btfids is replaced with generation of the following binaries: * ${1}.BTF with .BTF section data * ${1}.BTF_ids with .BTF_ids section data if it existed in ${1} * ${1}.BTF.base with .BTF.base section data for out-of-tree modules The execution of resolve_btfids and consumption of its output is orchestrated by scripts/gen-btf.sh introduced in this patch. The motivation for emitting binary data is that it allows simplifying resolve_btfids implementation by delegating ELF update to the $OBJCOPY tool [1], which is already widely used across the codebase. There are two distinct paths for BTF generation and resolve_btfids application in the kernel build: for vmlinux and for kernel modules. For the vmlinux binary a .BTF section is added in a roundabout way to ensure correct linking. The patch doesn't change this approach, only the implementation is a little different. Before this patch it worked as follows: * pahole consumed .tmp_vmlinux1 [2] and added .BTF section with llvm-objcopy [3] to it * then everything except the .BTF section was stripped from .tmp_vmlinux1 into a .tmp_vmlinux1.bpf.o object [2], later linked into vmlinux * resolve_btfids was executed later on vmlinux.unstripped [4], updating it in-place After this patch gen-btf.sh implements the following: * pahole consumes .tmp_vmlinux1 and produces a *detached* file with raw BTF data * resolve_btfids consumes .tmp_vmlinux1 and detached BTF to produce (potentially modified) .BTF, and .BTF_ids sections data * a .tmp_vmlinux1.bpf.o object is then produced with objcopy copying BTF output of resolve_btfids * .BTF_ids data gets embedded into vmlinux.unstripped in link-vmlinux.sh by objcopy --update-section For kernel modules, creating a special .bpf.o file is not necessary, and so embedding of sections data produced by resolve_btfids is straightforward with objcopy. With this patch an ELF file becomes effectively read-only within resolve_btfids, which allows deleting elf_update() call and satellite code (like compressed_section_fix [5]). Endianness handling of .BTF_ids data is also changed. Previously the "flags" part of the section was bswapped in sets_patch() [6], and then Elf_Type was modified before elf_update() to signal to libelf that bswap may be necessary. With this patch we explicitly bswap entire data buffer on load and on dump. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/131b4190-9c49-4f79-a99d-c00fac97fa44@linux.dev/ [2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh?h=v6.18#n110 [3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/devel/pahole/pahole.git/tree/btf_encoder.c?h=v1.31#n1803 [4] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh?h=v6.18#n284 [5] https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20200819092342.259004-1-jolsa@kernel.org/ [6] https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/cover.1707223196.git.vmalik@redhat.com/ Signed-off-by: Ihor Solodrai Signed-off-by: Andrii Nakryiko Tested-by: Alan Maguire Acked-by: Eduard Zingerman Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20251219181825.1289460-3-ihor.solodrai@linux.dev --- scripts/Makefile.vmlinux | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) (limited to 'scripts/Makefile.vmlinux') diff --git a/scripts/Makefile.vmlinux b/scripts/Makefile.vmlinux index cd788cac9d91..20a988f4fe0c 100644 --- a/scripts/Makefile.vmlinux +++ b/scripts/Makefile.vmlinux @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ targets += vmlinux.unstripped .vmlinux.export.o vmlinux.unstripped: scripts/link-vmlinux.sh vmlinux.o .vmlinux.export.o $(KBUILD_LDS) FORCE +$(call if_changed_dep,link_vmlinux) ifdef CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF -vmlinux.unstripped: $(RESOLVE_BTFIDS) +vmlinux.unstripped: $(RESOLVE_BTFIDS) $(srctree)/scripts/gen-btf.sh endif ifdef CONFIG_BUILDTIME_TABLE_SORT -- cgit v1.2.3