On Thu, Dec 03, 2020 at 09:07:30AM -0800, Sami Tolvanen wrote: > On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 3:26 AM Will Deacon <will@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > Hi Sami, > > > > On Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 01:36:51PM -0800, Sami Tolvanen wrote: > > > This patch series adds support for building the kernel with Clang's > > > Link Time Optimization (LTO). In addition to performance, the primary > > > motivation for LTO is to allow Clang's Control-Flow Integrity (CFI) > > > to be used in the kernel. Google has shipped millions of Pixel > > > devices running three major kernel versions with LTO+CFI since 2018. > > > > > > Most of the patches are build system changes for handling LLVM > > > bitcode, which Clang produces with LTO instead of ELF object files, > > > postponing ELF processing until a later stage, and ensuring initcall > > > ordering. > > > > > > Note that arm64 support depends on Will's memory ordering patches > > > [1]. I will post x86_64 patches separately after we have fixed the > > > remaining objtool warnings [2][3]. > > > > I took this series for a spin, with my for-next/lto branch merged in but > > I see a failure during the LTO stage with clang 11.0.5 because it doesn't > > understand the '.arch_extension rcpc' directive we throw out in READ_ONCE(). > > I just tested this with Clang 11.0.0, which I believe is the latest > 11.x version, and the current Clang 12 development branch, and both > work for me. Godbolt confirms that '.arch_extension rcpc' is supported > by the integrated assembler starting with Clang 11 (the example fails > with 10.0.1): > > https://godbolt.org/z/1csGcT > > What does running clang --version and ld.lld --version tell you? 11.0.5 is AOSP's clang, which is behind the upstream 11.0.0 release so it is most likely the case that it is missing the patch that added rcpc. I think that a version based on the development branch (12.0.0) is in the works but I am not sure. > > We actually check that this extension is available before using it in > > the arm64 Kconfig: > > > > config AS_HAS_LDAPR > > def_bool $(as-instr,.arch_extension rcpc) > > > > so this shouldn't happen. I then realised, I wasn't passing LLVM_IAS=1 > > on my Make command line; with that, then the detection works correctly > > and the LTO step succeeds. > > > > Why is it necessary to pass LLVM_IAS=1 if LTO is enabled? I think it > > would be _much_ better if this was implicit (or if LTO depended on it). > > Without LLVM_IAS=1, Clang uses two different assemblers when LTO is > enabled: the external GNU assembler for stand-alone assembly, and > LLVM's integrated assembler for inline assembly. as-instr tests the > external assembler and makes an admittedly reasonable assumption that > the test is also valid for inline assembly. > > I agree that it would reduce confusion in future if we just always > enabled IAS with LTO. Nick, Nathan, any thoughts about this? I am personally fine with that. As far as I am aware, we are in a fairly good spot on arm64 and x86_64 when it comes to the integrated assembler. Should we make it so that the user has to pass LLVM_IAS=1 explicitly or we just make adding the no integrated assembler flag to CLANG_FLAGS depend on not LTO (although that will require extra handling because Kconfig is not available at that stage I think)? Cheers, Nathan
