From: Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>
To: "Joel Fernandes (Google)" <joel@joelfernandes.org>,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
ast@kernel.org, atishp04@gmail.com, dancol@google.com,
Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>,
gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, Guenter Roeck <groeck@chromium.org>,
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
karim.yaghmour@opersys.com, Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
kernel-team@android.com, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org,
linux-trace-devel@vger.kernel.org,
Manoj Rao <linux@manojrajarao.com>,
Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@socionext.com>,
mhiramat@kernel.org, qais.yousef@arm.com, rdunlap@infradead.org,
rostedt@goodmis.org, Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>,
yhs@fb.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v4 1/2] Provide in-kernel headers for making it easy to extend the kernel
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2019 23:48:52 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <934dc2dc-18b6-bc7c-9845-dac0577f7b47@arm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20190301160856.129678-1-joel@joelfernandes.org>
On 3/1/19 5:08 PM, Joel Fernandes (Google) wrote:
> Introduce in-kernel headers and other artifacts which are made available
> as an archive through proc (/proc/kheaders.tar.xz file). This archive makes
> it possible to build kernel modules, run eBPF programs, and other
> tracing programs that need to extend the kernel for tracing purposes
> without any dependency on the file system having headers and build
> artifacts.
>
> On Android and embedded systems, it is common to switch kernels but not
> have kernel headers available on the file system. Raw kernel headers
> also cannot be copied into the filesystem like they can be on other
> distros, due to licensing and other issues. There's no linux-headers
> package on Android. Further once a different kernel is booted, any
> headers stored on the file system will no longer be useful. By storing
> the headers as a compressed archive within the kernel, we can avoid these
> issues that have been a hindrance for a long time.
>
> The feature is also buildable as a module just in case the user desires
> it not being part of the kernel image. This makes it possible to load
> and unload the headers on demand. A tracing program, or a kernel module
> builder can load the module, do its operations, and then unload the
> module to save kernel memory. The total memory needed is 3.8MB.
>
> The code to read the headers is based on /proc/config.gz code and uses
> the same technique to embed the headers.
>
> To build a module, the below steps have been tested on an x86 machine:
> modprobe kheaders
> rm -rf $HOME/headers
> mkdir -p $HOME/headers
> tar -xvf /proc/kheaders.tar.xz -C $HOME/headers >/dev/null
> cd my-kernel-module
> make -C $HOME/headers M=$(pwd) modules
> rmmod kheaders
>
> Additional notes:
> (1) external modules must be built on the same arch as the host that
> built vmlinux. This can be done either in a qemu emulated chroot on the
> target, or natively. This is due to host arch dependency of kernel
> scripts.
>
> (2)
> A limitation of module building with this is, since Module.symvers is
> not available in the archive due to a cyclic dependency with building of
> the archive into the kernel or module binaries, the modules built using
> the archive will not contain symbol versioning (modversion). This is
> usually not an issue since the idea of this patch is to build a kernel
> module on the fly and load it into the same kernel. An appropriate
> warning is already printed by the kernel to alert the user of modules
> not having modversions when built using the archive. For building with
> modversions, the user can use traditional header packages. For our
> tracing usecases, we build modules on the fly with this so it is not a
> concern.
>
> (3) I have left IKHD_ST and IKHD_ED markers as is to facilitate
> future patches that would extract the headers from a kernel or module
> image.
>
> Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>
> ---
>
> Changes since v3:
> - Blank tar was being generated because of a one line I
> forgot to push. It is updated now.
> - Added module.lds since arm64 needs it to build modules.
Tested on x86 with eBPF scripts and exporting an alternative
BCC_KERNEL_SOURCE.
Tested-by: Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-03-04 22:49 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 48+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-03-01 16:08 [PATCH v4 1/2] Provide in-kernel headers for making it easy to extend the kernel Joel Fernandes (Google)
2019-03-01 16:08 ` [PATCH v4 2/2] Add selftests for module build using in-kernel headers Joel Fernandes (Google)
2019-03-02 21:59 ` [PATCH v4 1/2] Provide in-kernel headers for making it easy to extend the kernel kbuild test robot
2019-03-03 16:11 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-06 12:26 ` Masahiro Yamada
2019-03-06 17:49 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-07 4:59 ` Masahiro Yamada
2019-03-07 14:54 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-07 23:23 ` Justin Capella
2019-03-06 18:16 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-07 4:54 ` Masahiro Yamada
2019-03-03 2:04 ` kbuild test robot
2019-03-04 14:00 ` Qais Yousef
2019-03-05 16:27 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-04 22:48 ` Dietmar Eggemann [this message]
2019-03-05 16:25 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-07 8:58 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2019-03-07 15:03 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-07 15:23 ` Greg KH
2019-03-07 16:54 ` Joel Fernandes
[not found] ` <20190318185742.109dee5c@alans-desktop>
2019-03-18 19:11 ` Daniel Colascione
2019-03-18 21:11 ` Karim Yaghmour
2019-03-08 8:53 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2019-03-08 13:42 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-08 13:57 ` Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
2019-03-08 14:04 ` Greg KH
2019-03-08 14:02 ` Greg KH
2019-03-08 17:58 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-08 17:59 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2019-03-09 7:16 ` Greg KH
2019-03-09 11:40 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2019-03-09 12:11 ` Greg KH
2019-03-09 16:51 ` Karim Yaghmour
2019-03-09 19:26 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2019-03-09 21:44 ` Karim Yaghmour
2019-03-11 8:03 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2019-03-12 15:15 ` Karim Yaghmour
2019-03-11 23:36 ` Steven Rostedt
2019-03-11 23:58 ` Daniel Colascione
2019-03-12 0:39 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-12 1:28 ` Steven Rostedt
2019-03-12 1:38 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-13 1:18 ` Masami Hiramatsu
2019-03-14 12:27 ` Joel Fernandes
2019-03-15 13:14 ` Masami Hiramatsu
2019-03-12 1:45 ` Alexei Starovoitov
2019-03-12 15:26 ` Steven Rostedt
2019-03-12 1:22 ` Steven Rostedt
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