Re: [PATCH v5 14/16] modules: Support extended MODVERSIONS info

From: Luis Chamberlain
Date: Fri Oct 11 2024 - 18:22:25 EST


On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 11:38:29PM +0000, Matthew Maurer wrote:
> Adds a new format for MODVERSIONS which stores each field in a separate
> ELF section. This initially adds support for variable length names, but
> could later be used to add additional fields to MODVERSIONS in a
> backwards compatible way if needed. Any new fields will be ignored by
> old user tooling, unlike the current format where user tooling cannot
> tolerate adjustments to the format (for example making the name field
> longer).
>
> Since PPC munges its version records to strip leading dots, we reproduce
> the munging for the new format. Other architectures do not appear to
> have architecture-specific usage of this information.
>
> Signed-off-by: Matthew Maurer <mmaurer@xxxxxxxxxx>

I'm all for the ELF validation work so far, all that was nice, thanks
for all that tidying up. This however is not considering when we really
need all this at all, and not making it specific to the build times when
such things are needed. That is, yes I'd like to see the need for this
clearly explicitly defined through Kconfig, a *select FOO_FEATURE* for
when this is needed. No need to extend a module with bloat if we don't
need it, likewise if a kernel was built without needing those things,
why bloat the modules with the extra information?

Luis