From: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx> The currently minimum-supported binutils version 2.21 has the problem of promoting symbols which are defined outside of a section into absolute. According to Arvind: binutils-2.21 and -2.22. An x86-64 defconfig will fail with Invalid absolute R_X86_64_32S relocation: _etext and after fixing that one, with Invalid absolute R_X86_64_32S relocation: __end_of_kernel_reserve Those two versions of binutils have a bug when it comes to handling symbols defined outside of a section and binutils 2.23 has the proper fix, see: https://sourceware.org/legacy-ml/binutils/2012-06/msg00155.html Therefore, up to the fixed version directly, skipping the broken ones. Currently shipping distros already have the fixed binutils version so there should be no breakage resulting from this. For more details about the whole thing, see the thread in Link. Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@xxxxxxx> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200110202349.1881840-1-nivedita@xxxxxxxxxxxx Acked-by: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Jason A. Donenfeld <Jason@xxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@xxxxxxxxxx> --- Changes in v2: None Documentation/process/changes.rst | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/process/changes.rst b/Documentation/process/changes.rst index e47863575917..91c5ff8e161e 100644 --- a/Documentation/process/changes.rst +++ b/Documentation/process/changes.rst @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ you probably needn't concern yourself with pcmciautils. ====================== =============== ======================================== GNU C 4.6 gcc --version GNU make 3.81 make --version -binutils 2.21 ld -v +binutils 2.23 ld -v flex 2.5.35 flex --version bison 2.0 bison --version util-linux 2.10o fdformat --version @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ You will need GNU make 3.81 or later to build the kernel. Binutils -------- -Binutils 2.21 or newer is needed to build the kernel. +Binutils 2.23 or newer is needed to build the kernel. pkg-config ---------- -- 2.17.1