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

[Luis Chamberlain]

On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 03:27:30PM -0700, Matthew Maurer wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 3:22 PM Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > 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?
> 
> To make sure I understand what you're asking for, are you suggesting:
> 1. A config flag for supporting parsing the extended format
> 2. A config flag for supporting parsing the existing format
> 3. A config flag for putting the extended format into produced modules
> 4. A config flag for putting the existing format into produced modules
> or some combination of the above?
> 
> I'm currently reading this as #3, but figured I'd ask to be certain.

3), but if your kernel build does not require these extra things, then
a simple if !(IS_ENABLED) sanity check could be put in place to avoid
processing the information if the kernel didn't need it. It's a one line
change. So at run time, we build the same kernel with all that code in,
but it makes no sense to be processing modules with that stuff if
kernels did not need it.

  Luis