Re: [PATCH] x86/alternatives: Fix optimize_nops() checking

[Josh Poimboeuf]

On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 01:17:45PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 1:11 PM, Linus Torvalds
> <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Wouldn't it be much better to simply do it as part of relocation instead?
> 
> .. except we only do real relocation for modules, and depend on the
> linker doing everything for us (handle_relocations() at load-time) I
> think.
> 
> So it's somewhat more involved surgery. Which explains the hack.
> 
> Nasty.

Right.  With KASLR, the relocations seem to be resolved by
handle_relocations(), but without KASLR, they're resolved in vmlinux
linking.

-- 
Josh