Bringing glibc 2.34 snapshots to Fedora 35 and CentOS Stream 9

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



TL;DR: glibc 2.34 snapshots are coming. libpthread as a separate library
creates problems, so we are removing it.  There may be some
hickups. Full updates with “dnf update” are recommended.


We expect that we will soon be able to import glibc upstream snapshots
regularly into Fedora 35 and CentOS Stream 9.  We did such regular
imports for the past couple of Fedora rawhide releases, but the
situation will be slightly different, as explained below.  The snapshots
will also land in CentOS Stream 9, after a delay as the result of a
different testing pipeline.

glibc 2.33 and earlier accidentally provided an very generic ROP gadget
in the statically linked startup code that is present in every program
(even dynamically linked ones).  We have removed the ROP gadget and
moved that particular initialization code into the dynamically linked
part, but that means that the interface between the startup code and the
dynamically loaded glibc parts had to change.  As a result, any program
linked against glibc 2.34 will not run with glibc 2.33 or any earlier
version.  (Some of you may remember the memcpy@GLIBC_2.14 issue, it was
similar.)  This version requirement will be properly reflected in RPM
dependencies.

glibc 2.34 removes libpthread as a separate library.  This is based on
the observation that most processes load libpthread anyway.  (On this
system, I count 141 out of 159 processes that load libpthread.)  One
particularly thorny issue is that certain NSS modules depend on
libpthread, and if the main program is not linked (indirectly) against
libpthread, loading such NSS modules effectively loads libpthread via
dlopen, which is something that glibc has never supported well.
Furthermore, the availability of some pthread_* functions without
-lpthread has been a source of confusion to developers, resulting in
both overlinking and underlinking.

We started the libpthread transition in glibc 2.33 when we added the
__libc_single_threaded variable as a replacement for the weak symbol
hacks that some libraries use to detect single-threaded processes.  (For
example, libstdc++ used to do this to avoid using atomic instructions in
std::shared_ptr.)  Backwards compatibility for dynamically linked
binaries should be preserved (as usual), but we know of one issue on
ppc64le, where the weak symbol hacks resulted in slightly corrupt
binaries.  Upstream glibc did not accept the proposed backwards
compatibility enhancement so far.  Instead, we will rebuild affected
distribution binaries with a binutils version which handles weak symbols
slightly differently, avoiding the corruption.  As we plan to perform
these rebuilds before the new glibc lands in the buildroot, the
requirement to upgrade to the new binaries before or at the same time of
the upgrade to the glibc upstream snapshot will NOT be reflected in RPM
dependencies.  A full upgrade using “dnf update” will work, however.

In addition to the removal of libpthread, I also hope to remove libdl
and librt.  This means that new GLIBC_2.34 symbols will be added to
libc.so.6 (e.g., timer_create@GLIBC_2.34).  The librt removal in
particular will probably not land with the first imported snapshot.
This is unfortunate because RPM does not have a way to express this:
there's just a blanket Provides: libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.34), which will
already be included in the first snapshot that adds the symbol
__lib_start_main@@GLIBC_2.34 (whether or not the RPM package includes
timer_create@GLIBC_2.34 as well).  Some tools in the fedpkg/centpkg/mock
sphere try to install builds from the Koji buildroot into installations
from composes, without upgrading everything to the current buildroot, so
it's possible that glibc won't be upgraded to match the requirements of
RPMs directly imported from the buildroot.  Developers encountered
similar issues with glibc snapshot imports (e.g., around the symbol
pthread_getattr_np).  Our RPM infrastructure does not have per-symbol
dependencies, so there isn't much we can do about it at the packaging
level.  It's a transitory issue during rawhide/CentOS Stream 9
development; the finished release will add all GLIBC_2.34 symbols in one
upgrade, so end users won't see it in a Fedora 34 to Fedora 35 upgrade
or a CentOS Stream 8 to CentOS Stream 9 upgrade.

We think there is value in providing access to these snapshots early,
and will try to make the transitions as smooth as possible, within the
constraints outlined above.

Thanks,
Florian
_______________________________________________
devel mailing list -- devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe send an email to devel-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/
List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure




[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[Index of Archives]     [Fedora Announce]     [Fedora Users]     [Fedora Kernel]     [Fedora Testing]     [Fedora Formulas]     [Fedora PHP Devel]     [Kernel Development]     [Fedora Legacy]     [Fedora Maintainers]     [Fedora Desktop]     [PAM]     [Red Hat Development]     [Gimp]     [Yosemite News]

  Powered by Linux