Re: [PATCH 0/3] selftests/bpf: Fixes for out-of-tree builds

[Eduard Zingerman]

On Mon, 2026-09-21 at 15:15 -0600, Nico Pache (Red Hat) wrote:
> 
> On 9/21/26 3:04 PM, Eduard Zingerman wrote:
> > On Mon, 2026-09-21 at 14:40 -0600, Nico Pache (Red Hat) wrote:
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > > Given your series was defferred, and there is a "rewrite" coming, what would
> > > be the best approach to working together (between us three) to get these
> > > fixes in that series too. 
> > 
> > The, "rewrite", as you call it, had landed today.
> 
> oh thats great news. I checked on Friday and didnt see it. Thanks for the update :)
> 
> > So the series in question can be re-spun.
> > Regarding your patch on top of it, it appears you can just post is separately.
> > However, I am inclined to be confrontational towards changes like this one.
> > The purpose of the selftests makefile is to run selftests as appropriate
> > for current tip of the kernel tree using a very specific kernel configuration.
> > Main users of this makefile are BPF developers and BPF CI.
> 
> Yeah we are trying to reincorporate BPF as part of our CI. It has bit rotted in
> the Fedora env, and our large amount of build variant is where things are
> starting to go wrong. We need to build selftests for multiple variants, and be
> able to specify which variant we are building for. Hence the out-of-tree build
> with specific vmlinux.

Why can't you build the kernel and the selftests in the same out of tree location?
The change you are proposing is contained, but it's a death by thousand cuts,
the selftests makefile is quite a Frankenstein's monster already.

> Is there any other approach you'd suggest? I personally dont work on BPF, but am
> trying to cleanup/fix our selftests builds for Upstream/Fedora CI.

How many Fedora-specific kernel patches do you carry already?

> Thanks,
> -- Nico
> 
> > Support for distros customizing the makefile is a non-goal.
> > The "PERMISSIVE" change done enough damage already.
> > 
> > ...