Re: [PATCH] kexec_file: Drop pr_err in weak implementations of arch_kexec_apply_relocations[_add]

From: Naveen N. Rao
Date: Tue May 17 2022 - 03:59:15 EST


Naveen N. Rao wrote:
kexec_load_purgatory() can fail for many reasons - there is no need to
print an error when encountering unsupported relocations.

This solves a build issue on powerpc with binutils v2.36 and newer [1].
Since commit d1bcae833b32f1 ("ELF: Don't generate unused section
symbols") [2], binutils started dropping section symbols that it thought
were unused. This isn't an issue in general, but with kexec_file.c, gcc
is placing kexec_arch_apply_relocations[_add] into a separate
.text.unlikely section and the section symbol ".text.unlikely" is being
dropped. Due to this, recordmcount is unable to find a non-weak symbol
in .text.unlikely to generate a relocation record against. Dropping
pr_err() calls results in these functions being left in .text section,
enabling recordmcount to emit a proper relocation record.

[1] https://github.com/linuxppc/issues/issues/388
[2] https://sourceware.org/git/?p=binutils-gdb.git;a=commit;h=d1bcae833b32f1

Signed-off-by: Naveen N. Rao <naveen.n.rao@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/kexec_file.c | 2 --
1 file changed, 2 deletions(-)

Eric,
Any comments on this? There have been many reports of build breakages due to this.

FWIW, there have been similar fixes in the past:
- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/init/initramfs.c?id=55d5b7dd6451b58489ce384282ca5a4a289eb8d5
- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/include/linux/elfcore.h?id=6e7b64b9dd6d96537d816ea07ec26b7dedd397b9


- Naveen