Re: [PATCH 6/7] md/raid10, LLVM: get rid of variable length array

[Dmitry Vyukov]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 7:57 PM, Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 07:47:33PM +0100, Dmitry Vyukov wrote:
>> This problem is more general and is not specific to clang. It equally
>> applies to different versions of gcc, different arches and different
>> configs (namely, anything else than what a developer used for
>> testing).
>
> I guess. We do carry a bunch of gcc workarounds along with the cc-*
> macros in scripts/Kbuild.include.
>
>> A known, reasonably well working solution to this problem is
>> a system of try bots that test patches before commit with different
>> compilers/configs/archs. We already have such system in the form of
>> 0-day bots. It would be useful to extend it with clang as soon as
>> kernel builds.
>
> Has someone actually already talked to Fengguang about it?

+Fengguang

> Oh, and the stupid question: why the effort to build the kernel
> with clang at all? Just because or are there some actual, palpable
> advantages?

On our side it is:
 - clang make it possible to implement KMSAN (dynamic detection of
uses of uninit memory)
 - better code coverage for fuzzing
 - why simpler and faster development (e.g. we can port our user-space
hardening technologies -- CFI and SafeStack)

You can also find some reasons in the Why section of LLVM-Linux project:
http://llvm.linuxfoundation.org/index.php/Main_Page