Re: [PATCH v6] kernel.h: Retain constant expression output for max()/min()

[Ingo Molnar]

* Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 10:47 PM, Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > * Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> In the effort to remove all VLAs from the kernel[1], it is desirable to
> >> build with -Wvla. However, this warning is overly pessimistic, in that
> >> it is only happy with stack array sizes that are declared as constant
> >> expressions, and not constant values. One case of this is the evaluation
> >> of the max() macro which, due to its construction, ends up converting
> >> constant expression arguments into a constant value result.
> >>
> >> All attempts to rewrite this macro with __builtin_constant_p() failed with
> >> older compilers (e.g. gcc 4.4)[2]. However, Martin Uecker constructed[3] a
> >> mind-shattering solution that works everywhere. Cthulhu fhtagn!
> >>
> >> This patch updates the min()/max() macros to evaluate to a constant
> >> expression when called on constant expression arguments. This removes
> >> several false-positive stack VLA warnings from an x86 allmodconfig
> >> build when -Wvla is added:
> >
> > Cool!
> >
> > Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > How many warnings are left in an allmodconfig build?
> 
> For -Wvla? Out of the original 112 files with VLAs, 42 haven't had a
> patch applied yet. Doing a linux-next allmodconfig build with the
> max() patch and my latest ecc patch, we've gone from 316 warning
> instances to 205. More than half of those are in
> include/crypto/skcipher.h and include/crypto/hash.h.

Great - once the number of warnings is zero, is the plan to enable the warning 
unconditionally?

Thanks,

	Ingo