mbox series

[v6,00/18] Implement DWARF modversions

Message ID 20241121204220.2378181-20-samitolvanen@google.com (mailing list archive)
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Series Implement DWARF modversions | expand

Message

Sami Tolvanen Nov. 21, 2024, 8:42 p.m. UTC
Hi,

Here's v6 of the DWARF modversions series. The main motivation is
modversions support for Rust, which is important for distributions
like Android that are about to ship Rust kernel modules. Per Luis'
request [1], v2 dropped the Rust specific bits from the series and
instead added the feature as an option for the entire kernel to
make it easier to evaluate the benefits of this approach, and to
get better test coverage. Matt is addressing Rust modversion_info
compatibility issues in a separate patch set [2] that depends on
this series, and actually allows modversions to be enabled with
Rust.

Short background: Unlike C, Rust source code doesn't have sufficient
information about the final ABI, as the compiler has considerable
freedom in adjusting structure layout, for example, which makes
using a source code parser like genksyms a non-starter. Based on
earlier feedback, this series uses DWARF debugging information for
computing versions. DWARF is an established and a relatively stable
format, which includes all the necessary ABI details, and adding a
CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO dependency for Rust symbol versioning seems like a
reasonable trade-off as most distributions already enable it.

The first 15 patches add gendwarfksyms, a tool for computing symbol
versions from DWARF. When passed a list of exported symbols and
object files, the tool generates an expanded type string for each
symbol and computes symbol versions. gendwarfksyms is written in C,
uses libdw to process DWARF, and zlib for CRC32. Patch 16 ensures
that debugging information is present where we need it, patch 17
adds gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms, and the last patch
adds documentation.

v6 has changes to structure expansion and the kABI stability
features based on our backtesting results with previous Android
release kernels (see the change log below). It's also based on
linux-kbuild/for-next to include symtypes build rule clean-ups from
Masahiro [3]. For your convenience, the series is also available
here:

https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux/commits/gendwarfksyms-v6

If you also want to test the series with actual Rust modules, this
branch adds Matt's latest modversion_info series:

https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux/commits/rustmodversions-v6

Sami


[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZnIZEtkkQWEIGf9n@bombadil.infradead.org/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/20241030-extended-modversions-v8-0-93acdef62ce8@google.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/CAK7LNAR9c+EEsOvPPn4qSq3gAFskYOXVd=dg8O+bKeeC-HMifw@mail.gmail.com/

---

v6:
- Dropped pointer expansion limits as this affects version
  stability when exported symbols are removed. (Patch 9)

- Changed local type definitions (in .c files) that are opaque
  to external users to be treated as declarations even if a
  definition is available. (Patch 9)

- Switched to zlib's CRC32 implementation per Masahiro's
  suggestion. (Patch 12)

- Renamed struct_declonly kABI rule to simply declonly, as it
  applies also to unions and enums, added a new rule for
  overriding enumerator values, and refactored the examples.
  (Patch 13)

- Added --stable support for renamed structure members and
  also added examples. (Patch 14)

- Rebased on linux-kbuild/for-next for Masahiro's symtypes
  build rule clean-ups. (Patch 17)

- Updated the documentation reflect --stable changes. (Patch 18)

v5: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241030170106.1501763-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
- Rebased on v6.12-rc5.

- Fixed an issue with limiting structure expansion, and applied
  Petr's clean-up. (Patch 10)

- Dropped an unnecessary return statement in error path. (Patch
  12)

- Addressed several other smaller issues Petr brought up. (Patches
  13, 14, and 15)

- Added a KBUILD_GENDWARFKSYMS_STABLE flag to enable --stable for
  the entire kernel build. (Patch 18)

- Updated documentation to include KBUILD flags. (Patch 19)

- Picked up Reviewed-by tags from v4.

v4: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241008183823.36676-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
- Rebased on v6.12-rc2, which now includes all the prerequisites.

- Dropped unnecessary name_only parameter for symbols.c::for_each
  and cleaned up error handling. (Patch 3)

- Fixed anonymous scope handling to ensure unnamed DIEs don't get
  names. (Patch 4)

- Added non-variant children to variant_type output, and included
  DW_AT_discr_value attributes for variants. (Patch 9)

- Added another symbol pointer test case. (Patch 16)

- Picked up (Acked|Reviewed)-by tags from v3.

v3: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240923181846.549877-22-samitolvanen@google.com/
- Updated SPX license headers.

- Squashed the first two patches in v2 and tried to reduce churn as
  much as reasonable.

- Dropped patch 18 from v2 ("x86/asm-prototypes: Include
  <asm/ptrace.h>") as it's addressed by a separate patch.

- Changed the error handling code to immediately terminate instead
  of propagating the errors back to main, which cleaned up the code
  quite a bit.

- Switched to the list and hashtable implementations in scripts and
  dropped the remaining tools/include dependencies. Added a couple
  missing list macros. (patch 1)

- Moved the genksyms CRC32 implementation to scripts/include and
  dropped the duplicate code. (patches 2 and 14)

- Switched from ad-hoc command line parsing to getopt_long (patch 3).

- Added structure member and function parameter names to the DIE
  output to match genksyms behavior, and tweaked the symtypes format
  to be more parser-friendly in general based on Petr's suggestions.

- Replaced the declaration-only struct annotations with more generic
  kABI stability rules that allow source code annotations to be used
  where #ifndef __GENKSYMS__ was previously used.  Added support for
  rules that can be used to exclude enumerators from versioning.
  (patch 16)

- Per Miroslav's suggestion, added an option to hide structure
  members from versioning when they're added to existing alignment
  holes, for example. (patch 16)

- Per Greg's request, added documentation and example macros for the
  --stable features, and a couple of test cases. (patches 15, 16, and
  20)

- Fixed making symtypes files, which need to depend on .o files with
  gendwarfksyms. (patch 19)

- Addressed several other smaller issues that Petr and Masahiro
  kindly pointed out during the v2 review.

v2: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240815173903.4172139-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
- Per Luis' request, dropped Rust-specific patches and added
  gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms for the entire
  kernel.

- Added support for missing DWARF features needed to handle
  also non-Rust code.

- Changed symbol address matching to use the symbol table
  information instead of relying on addresses in DWARF.

- Added __gendwarfksyms_ptr patches to ensure the compiler emits
  the necessary type information in DWARF even for symbols that
  are defined in other TUs.

- Refactored debugging output and moved the more verbose output
  behind --dump* flags.

- Added a --symtypes flag for generating a genksyms-style
  symtypes output based on Petr's feedback, and refactored
  symbol version calculations to be based on symtypes instead
  of raw --dump-dies output.

- Based on feedback from Greg and Petr, added --stable flag and
  support for reserved data structure fields and declaration-onl
  structures. Also added examples for using these features.

- Added a GENDWARFKSYMS option and hooked up kbuild support
  for both C and assembly code. Note that with gendwarfksyms,
  we have to actually build a temporary .o file for calculating
  assembly modversions.

v1: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240617175818.58219-17-samitolvanen@google.com/

---

Sami Tolvanen (18):
  tools: Add gendwarfksyms
  gendwarfksyms: Add address matching
  gendwarfksyms: Expand base_type
  gendwarfksyms: Add a cache for processed DIEs
  gendwarfksyms: Expand type modifiers and typedefs
  gendwarfksyms: Expand subroutine_type
  gendwarfksyms: Expand array_type
  gendwarfksyms: Expand structure types
  gendwarfksyms: Limit structure expansion
  gendwarfksyms: Add die_map debugging
  gendwarfksyms: Add symtypes output
  gendwarfksyms: Add symbol versioning
  gendwarfksyms: Add support for kABI rules
  gendwarfksyms: Add support for reserved and ignored fields
  gendwarfksyms: Add support for symbol type pointers
  export: Add __gendwarfksyms_ptr_ references to exported symbols
  kbuild: Add gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms
  Documentation/kbuild: Add DWARF module versioning

 Documentation/kbuild/gendwarfksyms.rst     |  308 ++++++
 Documentation/kbuild/index.rst             |    1 +
 include/linux/export.h                     |   15 +
 kernel/module/Kconfig                      |   31 +
 scripts/Makefile                           |    3 +-
 scripts/Makefile.build                     |   35 +-
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/.gitignore           |    2 +
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/Makefile             |   12 +
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/cache.c              |   51 +
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/die.c                |  166 +++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/dwarf.c              | 1158 ++++++++++++++++++++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi.h      |  157 +++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.c   |   30 +
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.h   |  263 +++++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/symbolptr.c |   33 +
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.c      |  185 ++++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.h      |  301 +++++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/kabi.c               |  333 ++++++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/symbols.c            |  339 ++++++
 scripts/gendwarfksyms/types.c              |  477 ++++++++
 20 files changed, 3893 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/kbuild/gendwarfksyms.rst
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/.gitignore
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/Makefile
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/cache.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/die.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/dwarf.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi.h
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.h
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/symbolptr.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.h
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/kabi.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/symbols.c
 create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/types.c


base-commit: 3596c721c4348b2a964e43f9296a0c01509ba927

Comments

Sedat Dilek Nov. 22, 2024, 1:51 a.m. UTC | #1
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 9:42 PM Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Here's v6 of the DWARF modversions series. The main motivation is
> modversions support for Rust, which is important for distributions
> like Android that are about to ship Rust kernel modules. Per Luis'
> request [1], v2 dropped the Rust specific bits from the series and
> instead added the feature as an option for the entire kernel to
> make it easier to evaluate the benefits of this approach, and to
> get better test coverage. Matt is addressing Rust modversion_info
> compatibility issues in a separate patch set [2] that depends on
> this series, and actually allows modversions to be enabled with
> Rust.
>
> Short background: Unlike C, Rust source code doesn't have sufficient
> information about the final ABI, as the compiler has considerable
> freedom in adjusting structure layout, for example, which makes
> using a source code parser like genksyms a non-starter. Based on
> earlier feedback, this series uses DWARF debugging information for
> computing versions. DWARF is an established and a relatively stable
> format, which includes all the necessary ABI details, and adding a
> CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO dependency for Rust symbol versioning seems like a
> reasonable trade-off as most distributions already enable it.
>
> The first 15 patches add gendwarfksyms, a tool for computing symbol
> versions from DWARF. When passed a list of exported symbols and
> object files, the tool generates an expanded type string for each
> symbol and computes symbol versions. gendwarfksyms is written in C,
> uses libdw to process DWARF, and zlib for CRC32. Patch 16 ensures
> that debugging information is present where we need it, patch 17
> adds gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms, and the last patch
> adds documentation.
>
> v6 has changes to structure expansion and the kABI stability
> features based on our backtesting results with previous Android
> release kernels (see the change log below). It's also based on
> linux-kbuild/for-next to include symtypes build rule clean-ups from
> Masahiro [3]. For your convenience, the series is also available
> here:
>
> https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux/commits/gendwarfksyms-v6
>

Thanks for the update, Sami.

What are your plans to get this upstream?

Is Linux 6.13 the new development base?

Personally, I would like to see a Linux v6.12 LTS version offered.

LTO is not supported - might be worth mentioning this in the
documentation patch with some explanations?

BTW, I am testing with the latest kmod-git and pahole-git.

I will give this a try when Linux v6.12.1 is released.

Best regards,
-Sedat-




> If you also want to test the series with actual Rust modules, this
> branch adds Matt's latest modversion_info series:
>
> https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux/commits/rustmodversions-v6
>
> Sami
>
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZnIZEtkkQWEIGf9n@bombadil.infradead.org/
> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/20241030-extended-modversions-v8-0-93acdef62ce8@google.com/
> [3] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/CAK7LNAR9c+EEsOvPPn4qSq3gAFskYOXVd=dg8O+bKeeC-HMifw@mail.gmail.com/
>
> ---
>
> v6:
> - Dropped pointer expansion limits as this affects version
>   stability when exported symbols are removed. (Patch 9)
>
> - Changed local type definitions (in .c files) that are opaque
>   to external users to be treated as declarations even if a
>   definition is available. (Patch 9)
>
> - Switched to zlib's CRC32 implementation per Masahiro's
>   suggestion. (Patch 12)
>
> - Renamed struct_declonly kABI rule to simply declonly, as it
>   applies also to unions and enums, added a new rule for
>   overriding enumerator values, and refactored the examples.
>   (Patch 13)
>
> - Added --stable support for renamed structure members and
>   also added examples. (Patch 14)
>
> - Rebased on linux-kbuild/for-next for Masahiro's symtypes
>   build rule clean-ups. (Patch 17)
>
> - Updated the documentation reflect --stable changes. (Patch 18)
>
> v5: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241030170106.1501763-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Rebased on v6.12-rc5.
>
> - Fixed an issue with limiting structure expansion, and applied
>   Petr's clean-up. (Patch 10)
>
> - Dropped an unnecessary return statement in error path. (Patch
>   12)
>
> - Addressed several other smaller issues Petr brought up. (Patches
>   13, 14, and 15)
>
> - Added a KBUILD_GENDWARFKSYMS_STABLE flag to enable --stable for
>   the entire kernel build. (Patch 18)
>
> - Updated documentation to include KBUILD flags. (Patch 19)
>
> - Picked up Reviewed-by tags from v4.
>
> v4: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241008183823.36676-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Rebased on v6.12-rc2, which now includes all the prerequisites.
>
> - Dropped unnecessary name_only parameter for symbols.c::for_each
>   and cleaned up error handling. (Patch 3)
>
> - Fixed anonymous scope handling to ensure unnamed DIEs don't get
>   names. (Patch 4)
>
> - Added non-variant children to variant_type output, and included
>   DW_AT_discr_value attributes for variants. (Patch 9)
>
> - Added another symbol pointer test case. (Patch 16)
>
> - Picked up (Acked|Reviewed)-by tags from v3.
>
> v3: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240923181846.549877-22-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Updated SPX license headers.
>
> - Squashed the first two patches in v2 and tried to reduce churn as
>   much as reasonable.
>
> - Dropped patch 18 from v2 ("x86/asm-prototypes: Include
>   <asm/ptrace.h>") as it's addressed by a separate patch.
>
> - Changed the error handling code to immediately terminate instead
>   of propagating the errors back to main, which cleaned up the code
>   quite a bit.
>
> - Switched to the list and hashtable implementations in scripts and
>   dropped the remaining tools/include dependencies. Added a couple
>   missing list macros. (patch 1)
>
> - Moved the genksyms CRC32 implementation to scripts/include and
>   dropped the duplicate code. (patches 2 and 14)
>
> - Switched from ad-hoc command line parsing to getopt_long (patch 3).
>
> - Added structure member and function parameter names to the DIE
>   output to match genksyms behavior, and tweaked the symtypes format
>   to be more parser-friendly in general based on Petr's suggestions.
>
> - Replaced the declaration-only struct annotations with more generic
>   kABI stability rules that allow source code annotations to be used
>   where #ifndef __GENKSYMS__ was previously used.  Added support for
>   rules that can be used to exclude enumerators from versioning.
>   (patch 16)
>
> - Per Miroslav's suggestion, added an option to hide structure
>   members from versioning when they're added to existing alignment
>   holes, for example. (patch 16)
>
> - Per Greg's request, added documentation and example macros for the
>   --stable features, and a couple of test cases. (patches 15, 16, and
>   20)
>
> - Fixed making symtypes files, which need to depend on .o files with
>   gendwarfksyms. (patch 19)
>
> - Addressed several other smaller issues that Petr and Masahiro
>   kindly pointed out during the v2 review.
>
> v2: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240815173903.4172139-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Per Luis' request, dropped Rust-specific patches and added
>   gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms for the entire
>   kernel.
>
> - Added support for missing DWARF features needed to handle
>   also non-Rust code.
>
> - Changed symbol address matching to use the symbol table
>   information instead of relying on addresses in DWARF.
>
> - Added __gendwarfksyms_ptr patches to ensure the compiler emits
>   the necessary type information in DWARF even for symbols that
>   are defined in other TUs.
>
> - Refactored debugging output and moved the more verbose output
>   behind --dump* flags.
>
> - Added a --symtypes flag for generating a genksyms-style
>   symtypes output based on Petr's feedback, and refactored
>   symbol version calculations to be based on symtypes instead
>   of raw --dump-dies output.
>
> - Based on feedback from Greg and Petr, added --stable flag and
>   support for reserved data structure fields and declaration-onl
>   structures. Also added examples for using these features.
>
> - Added a GENDWARFKSYMS option and hooked up kbuild support
>   for both C and assembly code. Note that with gendwarfksyms,
>   we have to actually build a temporary .o file for calculating
>   assembly modversions.
>
> v1: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240617175818.58219-17-samitolvanen@google.com/
>
> ---
>
> Sami Tolvanen (18):
>   tools: Add gendwarfksyms
>   gendwarfksyms: Add address matching
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand base_type
>   gendwarfksyms: Add a cache for processed DIEs
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand type modifiers and typedefs
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand subroutine_type
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand array_type
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand structure types
>   gendwarfksyms: Limit structure expansion
>   gendwarfksyms: Add die_map debugging
>   gendwarfksyms: Add symtypes output
>   gendwarfksyms: Add symbol versioning
>   gendwarfksyms: Add support for kABI rules
>   gendwarfksyms: Add support for reserved and ignored fields
>   gendwarfksyms: Add support for symbol type pointers
>   export: Add __gendwarfksyms_ptr_ references to exported symbols
>   kbuild: Add gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms
>   Documentation/kbuild: Add DWARF module versioning
>
>  Documentation/kbuild/gendwarfksyms.rst     |  308 ++++++
>  Documentation/kbuild/index.rst             |    1 +
>  include/linux/export.h                     |   15 +
>  kernel/module/Kconfig                      |   31 +
>  scripts/Makefile                           |    3 +-
>  scripts/Makefile.build                     |   35 +-
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/.gitignore           |    2 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/Makefile             |   12 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/cache.c              |   51 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/die.c                |  166 +++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/dwarf.c              | 1158 ++++++++++++++++++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi.h      |  157 +++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.c   |   30 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.h   |  263 +++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/symbolptr.c |   33 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.c      |  185 ++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.h      |  301 +++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/kabi.c               |  333 ++++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/symbols.c            |  339 ++++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/types.c              |  477 ++++++++
>  20 files changed, 3893 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 Documentation/kbuild/gendwarfksyms.rst
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/.gitignore
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/Makefile
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/cache.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/die.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/dwarf.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi.h
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.h
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/symbolptr.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.h
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/kabi.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/symbols.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/types.c
>
>
> base-commit: 3596c721c4348b2a964e43f9296a0c01509ba927
> --
> 2.47.0.371.ga323438b13-goog
>
Sedat Dilek Nov. 23, 2024, 11:22 a.m. UTC | #2
> BTW, I am testing with the latest kmod-git and pahole-git.
>
> I will give this a try when Linux v6.12.1 is released.
>

I have a prolonged build-time of +22,75 per cent.
Compared gendwarfksyms-v5 + Linux-v6.12.0 VS. gendwarfksyms-v6 + Linux-v6.12.1

Is this a known issue?

Best regards,
-Sedat-
Sami Tolvanen Nov. 25, 2024, 9:21 a.m. UTC | #3
Hi Sedat,

On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 3:51 AM Sedat Dilek <sedat.dilek@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the update, Sami.
>
> What are your plans to get this upstream?

Once everything has been reviewed, I'm suspect it would be up to
Masahiro to decide if he wants to pick this up.

> Is Linux 6.13 the new development base?
>
> Personally, I would like to see a Linux v6.12 LTS version offered.

This version is based on linux-kbuild/for-next, which at the time was
based on 6.12-rc6, I think. It should apply cleanly to 6.12.

> LTO is not supported - might be worth mentioning this in the
> documentation patch with some explanations?

Sure, it's probably worthwhile to add a note.

Sami
Sami Tolvanen Nov. 25, 2024, 9:34 a.m. UTC | #4
Hi,

On Sat, Nov 23, 2024 at 1:23 PM Sedat Dilek <sedat.dilek@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > BTW, I am testing with the latest kmod-git and pahole-git.
> >
> > I will give this a try when Linux v6.12.1 is released.
> >
>
> I have a prolonged build-time of +22,75 per cent.
> Compared gendwarfksyms-v5 + Linux-v6.12.0 VS. gendwarfksyms-v6 + Linux-v6.12.1
>
> Is this a known issue?

In my tests, compared to a genksyms defconfig build with debugging
information, v5 was slightly faster, and v6 was 5.6% slower. This is
because the expansion limits were dropped in this version to ensure
version stability when exports are removed. See the explanation here:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/20241120215454.GA3512979@google.com/

I did profile this quickly and most of the time seems to be spent in
libdw looking up attributes. We might be able to speed this up by
limiting the number of attributes we look up depending on the DIE
type, but I haven't had time to look into it yet. I'll take a closer
look when I'm back from my vacation in about three weeks.

Sami
Neal Gompa Nov. 25, 2024, 1:28 p.m. UTC | #5
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 3:42 PM Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Here's v6 of the DWARF modversions series. The main motivation is
> modversions support for Rust, which is important for distributions
> like Android that are about to ship Rust kernel modules. Per Luis'
> request [1], v2 dropped the Rust specific bits from the series and
> instead added the feature as an option for the entire kernel to
> make it easier to evaluate the benefits of this approach, and to
> get better test coverage. Matt is addressing Rust modversion_info
> compatibility issues in a separate patch set [2] that depends on
> this series, and actually allows modversions to be enabled with
> Rust.
>
> Short background: Unlike C, Rust source code doesn't have sufficient
> information about the final ABI, as the compiler has considerable
> freedom in adjusting structure layout, for example, which makes
> using a source code parser like genksyms a non-starter. Based on
> earlier feedback, this series uses DWARF debugging information for
> computing versions. DWARF is an established and a relatively stable
> format, which includes all the necessary ABI details, and adding a
> CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO dependency for Rust symbol versioning seems like a
> reasonable trade-off as most distributions already enable it.
>
> The first 15 patches add gendwarfksyms, a tool for computing symbol
> versions from DWARF. When passed a list of exported symbols and
> object files, the tool generates an expanded type string for each
> symbol and computes symbol versions. gendwarfksyms is written in C,
> uses libdw to process DWARF, and zlib for CRC32. Patch 16 ensures
> that debugging information is present where we need it, patch 17
> adds gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms, and the last patch
> adds documentation.
>
> v6 has changes to structure expansion and the kABI stability
> features based on our backtesting results with previous Android
> release kernels (see the change log below). It's also based on
> linux-kbuild/for-next to include symtypes build rule clean-ups from
> Masahiro [3]. For your convenience, the series is also available
> here:
>
> https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux/commits/gendwarfksyms-v6
>
> If you also want to test the series with actual Rust modules, this
> branch adds Matt's latest modversion_info series:
>
> https://github.com/samitolvanen/linux/commits/rustmodversions-v6
>
> Sami
>
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ZnIZEtkkQWEIGf9n@bombadil.infradead.org/
> [2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/20241030-extended-modversions-v8-0-93acdef62ce8@google.com/
> [3] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-modules/CAK7LNAR9c+EEsOvPPn4qSq3gAFskYOXVd=dg8O+bKeeC-HMifw@mail.gmail.com/
>
> ---
>
> v6:
> - Dropped pointer expansion limits as this affects version
>   stability when exported symbols are removed. (Patch 9)
>
> - Changed local type definitions (in .c files) that are opaque
>   to external users to be treated as declarations even if a
>   definition is available. (Patch 9)
>
> - Switched to zlib's CRC32 implementation per Masahiro's
>   suggestion. (Patch 12)
>
> - Renamed struct_declonly kABI rule to simply declonly, as it
>   applies also to unions and enums, added a new rule for
>   overriding enumerator values, and refactored the examples.
>   (Patch 13)
>
> - Added --stable support for renamed structure members and
>   also added examples. (Patch 14)
>
> - Rebased on linux-kbuild/for-next for Masahiro's symtypes
>   build rule clean-ups. (Patch 17)
>
> - Updated the documentation reflect --stable changes. (Patch 18)
>
> v5: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241030170106.1501763-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Rebased on v6.12-rc5.
>
> - Fixed an issue with limiting structure expansion, and applied
>   Petr's clean-up. (Patch 10)
>
> - Dropped an unnecessary return statement in error path. (Patch
>   12)
>
> - Addressed several other smaller issues Petr brought up. (Patches
>   13, 14, and 15)
>
> - Added a KBUILD_GENDWARFKSYMS_STABLE flag to enable --stable for
>   the entire kernel build. (Patch 18)
>
> - Updated documentation to include KBUILD flags. (Patch 19)
>
> - Picked up Reviewed-by tags from v4.
>
> v4: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20241008183823.36676-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Rebased on v6.12-rc2, which now includes all the prerequisites.
>
> - Dropped unnecessary name_only parameter for symbols.c::for_each
>   and cleaned up error handling. (Patch 3)
>
> - Fixed anonymous scope handling to ensure unnamed DIEs don't get
>   names. (Patch 4)
>
> - Added non-variant children to variant_type output, and included
>   DW_AT_discr_value attributes for variants. (Patch 9)
>
> - Added another symbol pointer test case. (Patch 16)
>
> - Picked up (Acked|Reviewed)-by tags from v3.
>
> v3: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240923181846.549877-22-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Updated SPX license headers.
>
> - Squashed the first two patches in v2 and tried to reduce churn as
>   much as reasonable.
>
> - Dropped patch 18 from v2 ("x86/asm-prototypes: Include
>   <asm/ptrace.h>") as it's addressed by a separate patch.
>
> - Changed the error handling code to immediately terminate instead
>   of propagating the errors back to main, which cleaned up the code
>   quite a bit.
>
> - Switched to the list and hashtable implementations in scripts and
>   dropped the remaining tools/include dependencies. Added a couple
>   missing list macros. (patch 1)
>
> - Moved the genksyms CRC32 implementation to scripts/include and
>   dropped the duplicate code. (patches 2 and 14)
>
> - Switched from ad-hoc command line parsing to getopt_long (patch 3).
>
> - Added structure member and function parameter names to the DIE
>   output to match genksyms behavior, and tweaked the symtypes format
>   to be more parser-friendly in general based on Petr's suggestions.
>
> - Replaced the declaration-only struct annotations with more generic
>   kABI stability rules that allow source code annotations to be used
>   where #ifndef __GENKSYMS__ was previously used.  Added support for
>   rules that can be used to exclude enumerators from versioning.
>   (patch 16)
>
> - Per Miroslav's suggestion, added an option to hide structure
>   members from versioning when they're added to existing alignment
>   holes, for example. (patch 16)
>
> - Per Greg's request, added documentation and example macros for the
>   --stable features, and a couple of test cases. (patches 15, 16, and
>   20)
>
> - Fixed making symtypes files, which need to depend on .o files with
>   gendwarfksyms. (patch 19)
>
> - Addressed several other smaller issues that Petr and Masahiro
>   kindly pointed out during the v2 review.
>
> v2: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240815173903.4172139-21-samitolvanen@google.com/
> - Per Luis' request, dropped Rust-specific patches and added
>   gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms for the entire
>   kernel.
>
> - Added support for missing DWARF features needed to handle
>   also non-Rust code.
>
> - Changed symbol address matching to use the symbol table
>   information instead of relying on addresses in DWARF.
>
> - Added __gendwarfksyms_ptr patches to ensure the compiler emits
>   the necessary type information in DWARF even for symbols that
>   are defined in other TUs.
>
> - Refactored debugging output and moved the more verbose output
>   behind --dump* flags.
>
> - Added a --symtypes flag for generating a genksyms-style
>   symtypes output based on Petr's feedback, and refactored
>   symbol version calculations to be based on symtypes instead
>   of raw --dump-dies output.
>
> - Based on feedback from Greg and Petr, added --stable flag and
>   support for reserved data structure fields and declaration-onl
>   structures. Also added examples for using these features.
>
> - Added a GENDWARFKSYMS option and hooked up kbuild support
>   for both C and assembly code. Note that with gendwarfksyms,
>   we have to actually build a temporary .o file for calculating
>   assembly modversions.
>
> v1: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240617175818.58219-17-samitolvanen@google.com/
>
> ---
>
> Sami Tolvanen (18):
>   tools: Add gendwarfksyms
>   gendwarfksyms: Add address matching
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand base_type
>   gendwarfksyms: Add a cache for processed DIEs
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand type modifiers and typedefs
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand subroutine_type
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand array_type
>   gendwarfksyms: Expand structure types
>   gendwarfksyms: Limit structure expansion
>   gendwarfksyms: Add die_map debugging
>   gendwarfksyms: Add symtypes output
>   gendwarfksyms: Add symbol versioning
>   gendwarfksyms: Add support for kABI rules
>   gendwarfksyms: Add support for reserved and ignored fields
>   gendwarfksyms: Add support for symbol type pointers
>   export: Add __gendwarfksyms_ptr_ references to exported symbols
>   kbuild: Add gendwarfksyms as an alternative to genksyms
>   Documentation/kbuild: Add DWARF module versioning
>
>  Documentation/kbuild/gendwarfksyms.rst     |  308 ++++++
>  Documentation/kbuild/index.rst             |    1 +
>  include/linux/export.h                     |   15 +
>  kernel/module/Kconfig                      |   31 +
>  scripts/Makefile                           |    3 +-
>  scripts/Makefile.build                     |   35 +-
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/.gitignore           |    2 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/Makefile             |   12 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/cache.c              |   51 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/die.c                |  166 +++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/dwarf.c              | 1158 ++++++++++++++++++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi.h      |  157 +++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.c   |   30 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.h   |  263 +++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/symbolptr.c |   33 +
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.c      |  185 ++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.h      |  301 +++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/kabi.c               |  333 ++++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/symbols.c            |  339 ++++++
>  scripts/gendwarfksyms/types.c              |  477 ++++++++
>  20 files changed, 3893 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 Documentation/kbuild/gendwarfksyms.rst
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/.gitignore
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/Makefile
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/cache.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/die.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/dwarf.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi.h
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/kabi_ex.h
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/examples/symbolptr.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/gendwarfksyms.h
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/kabi.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/symbols.c
>  create mode 100644 scripts/gendwarfksyms/types.c
>
>
> base-commit: 3596c721c4348b2a964e43f9296a0c01509ba927
> --
> 2.47.0.371.ga323438b13-goog
>

As my Acked-by was removed, I'm sorry to say that there is no point
for me to provide feedback since it is unwanted.

I hope it lands soon, but I also hope the people here who decided that
a person's efforts aren't worth recording because they don't
personally know them should reflect on this too. It's a good way to
keep people from coming into the community for the long term.

Regardless, I've copied one of the RHEL kernel folks (Don Zickus) onto
this thread to have his team be aware and give feedback. You'll
probably want their feedback instead of mine.
Miguel Ojeda Nov. 25, 2024, 2:41 p.m. UTC | #6
On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 2:29 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
>
> As my Acked-by was removed, I'm sorry to say that there is no point
> for me to provide feedback since it is unwanted.
>
> I hope it lands soon, but I also hope the people here who decided that
> a person's efforts aren't worth recording because they don't
> personally know them should reflect on this too. It's a good way to
> keep people from coming into the community for the long term.

Hopefully this reply helps -- apologies to anyone if I am overstepping.

On one side, it is true that Acked-by is typically used by people that
is responsible for the code one way or another, because the tag is
meant for them to acknowledge they are OK with the change going in,
and so I can see the argument that restricting it for that purpose
only may help avoid confusion later on reading the log.

On the other hand, someone being willing to put their name on a patch
is very valuable, whoever they are, and whatever the tag name is.
Moreover, it is also true that, Acked-by may be used here in a "as a
key user downstream, this looks reasonable and satisfies our needs"
sense.

Finally, sometimes new tags are invented on the fly because there is
no good fit, too.

Either way, I don't think anyone wanted to disregard your efforts or
to be rude to you in particular, but rather wanted to keep tags usage
aligned to how they view them or how they use them in their subsystem.
The Tested-by was still wanted, so I doubt their goal was to remove
you from the log or to make you feel unwelcomed.

Two solutions here that could be OK for both sides:

  - Would you be OK with another tag name? For instance,
"Acked-by-User:" or similar? That may help the maintainer keep the
Acked-bys the way they prefer, yet record your own Acked-by in a
separate category.

  - Another idea that the maintainer may accept is an Acked-by with a
"# suffix" comment that clarifies the meaning in this particular case,
e.g.:

      Acked-by: Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> # As primary consumer
(Fedora Asahi kernel maintainer).

Cheers,
Miguel
Sami Tolvanen Nov. 25, 2024, 3:34 p.m. UTC | #7
On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 4:41 PM Miguel Ojeda
<miguel.ojeda.sandonis@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 2:29 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
> >
> > As my Acked-by was removed, I'm sorry to say that there is no point
> > for me to provide feedback since it is unwanted.
> >
> > I hope it lands soon, but I also hope the people here who decided that
> > a person's efforts aren't worth recording because they don't
> > personally know them should reflect on this too. It's a good way to
> > keep people from coming into the community for the long term.
>
> Hopefully this reply helps -- apologies to anyone if I am overstepping.
>
> On one side, it is true that Acked-by is typically used by people that
> is responsible for the code one way or another, because the tag is
> meant for them to acknowledge they are OK with the change going in,
> and so I can see the argument that restricting it for that purpose
> only may help avoid confusion later on reading the log.
>
> On the other hand, someone being willing to put their name on a patch
> is very valuable, whoever they are, and whatever the tag name is.
> Moreover, it is also true that, Acked-by may be used here in a "as a
> key user downstream, this looks reasonable and satisfies our needs"
> sense.
>
> Finally, sometimes new tags are invented on the fly because there is
> no good fit, too.
>
> Either way, I don't think anyone wanted to disregard your efforts or
> to be rude to you in particular, but rather wanted to keep tags usage
> aligned to how they view them or how they use them in their subsystem.
> The Tested-by was still wanted, so I doubt their goal was to remove
> you from the log or to make you feel unwelcomed.

Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could, Miguel. Neal,
I do appreciate your feedback, and I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear
enough in my previous emails. I would very much welcome your
Tested-by, or another suitable tag that's acceptable to both you and
Masahiro.

Sami
Luis Chamberlain Nov. 26, 2024, 6:30 p.m. UTC | #8
On Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 08:42:21PM +0000, Sami Tolvanen wrote:
> If you also want to test the series with actual Rust modules, this
> branch adds Matt's latest modversion_info series:

The merge window for v6.13 is now open so this is too late for that, so
this is all work to be queued up after, so in about 2 weeks or so. Given
that, considering this and the extended modversions patches what I don't
see is actual selftests to easily test this and extended modversions.
Could you guys add tests for this? Since we have automated tests for
modules and we now extended it with another new test for kallsyms under
the modules directly it should be fairly easy I think to add tests for
this. Think about how we can easily grow these tests to ensure we don't
break things with future kernel regressions.

  Luis
Neal Gompa Dec. 10, 2024, 12:41 p.m. UTC | #9
On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 10:34 AM Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 4:41 PM Miguel Ojeda
> <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 2:29 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
> > >
> > > As my Acked-by was removed, I'm sorry to say that there is no point
> > > for me to provide feedback since it is unwanted.
> > >
> > > I hope it lands soon, but I also hope the people here who decided that
> > > a person's efforts aren't worth recording because they don't
> > > personally know them should reflect on this too. It's a good way to
> > > keep people from coming into the community for the long term.
> >
> > Hopefully this reply helps -- apologies to anyone if I am overstepping.
> >
> > On one side, it is true that Acked-by is typically used by people that
> > is responsible for the code one way or another, because the tag is
> > meant for them to acknowledge they are OK with the change going in,
> > and so I can see the argument that restricting it for that purpose
> > only may help avoid confusion later on reading the log.
> >
> > On the other hand, someone being willing to put their name on a patch
> > is very valuable, whoever they are, and whatever the tag name is.
> > Moreover, it is also true that, Acked-by may be used here in a "as a
> > key user downstream, this looks reasonable and satisfies our needs"
> > sense.
> >
> > Finally, sometimes new tags are invented on the fly because there is
> > no good fit, too.
> >
> > Either way, I don't think anyone wanted to disregard your efforts or
> > to be rude to you in particular, but rather wanted to keep tags usage
> > aligned to how they view them or how they use them in their subsystem.
> > The Tested-by was still wanted, so I doubt their goal was to remove
> > you from the log or to make you feel unwelcomed.
>
> Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could, Miguel. Neal,
> I do appreciate your feedback, and I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear
> enough in my previous emails. I would very much welcome your
> Tested-by, or another suitable tag that's acceptable to both you and
> Masahiro.
>

Honestly, I don't think it's worth it if my tag is going to be
stripped simply because someone thinks I'm "unqualified". If you want
more people participating in these things, doing stuff like that is
definitely not the way to do it. It's not like people haven't had a
chance to know me or even just look me up to know I'm not just blowing
smoke. I definitely feel like I'm being disregarded. :(

The sole reason I didn't give a Reviewed-by or Tested-by is that I
didn't want to do any integration work to validate it beyond the
basics, which would have meant dipping into the Red Hat kernel symbol
tracking infrastructure. I don't have time for that right now. If
someone else does, they can be my guest. I just don't feel comfortable
giving either without *actually* going that far.



--
真実はいつも一つ!/ Always, there's only one truth!
Masahiro Yamada Dec. 10, 2024, 2:27 p.m. UTC | #10
On Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 9:42 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 10:34 AM Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 4:41 PM Miguel Ojeda
> > <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 2:29 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > As my Acked-by was removed, I'm sorry to say that there is no point
> > > > for me to provide feedback since it is unwanted.
> > > >
> > > > I hope it lands soon, but I also hope the people here who decided that
> > > > a person's efforts aren't worth recording because they don't
> > > > personally know them should reflect on this too. It's a good way to
> > > > keep people from coming into the community for the long term.
> > >
> > > Hopefully this reply helps -- apologies to anyone if I am overstepping.
> > >
> > > On one side, it is true that Acked-by is typically used by people that
> > > is responsible for the code one way or another, because the tag is
> > > meant for them to acknowledge they are OK with the change going in,
> > > and so I can see the argument that restricting it for that purpose
> > > only may help avoid confusion later on reading the log.
> > >
> > > On the other hand, someone being willing to put their name on a patch
> > > is very valuable, whoever they are, and whatever the tag name is.
> > > Moreover, it is also true that, Acked-by may be used here in a "as a
> > > key user downstream, this looks reasonable and satisfies our needs"
> > > sense.
> > >
> > > Finally, sometimes new tags are invented on the fly because there is
> > > no good fit, too.
> > >
> > > Either way, I don't think anyone wanted to disregard your efforts or
> > > to be rude to you in particular, but rather wanted to keep tags usage
> > > aligned to how they view them or how they use them in their subsystem.
> > > The Tested-by was still wanted, so I doubt their goal was to remove
> > > you from the log or to make you feel unwelcomed.
> >
> > Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could, Miguel. Neal,
> > I do appreciate your feedback, and I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear
> > enough in my previous emails. I would very much welcome your
> > Tested-by, or another suitable tag that's acceptable to both you and
> > Masahiro.
> >
>
> Honestly, I don't think it's worth it if my tag is going to be
> stripped simply because someone thinks I'm "unqualified". If you want
> more people participating in these things, doing stuff like that is
> definitely not the way to do it. It's not like people haven't had a
> chance to know me or even just look me up to know I'm not just blowing
> smoke. I definitely feel like I'm being disregarded. :(
>
> The sole reason I didn't give a Reviewed-by or Tested-by is that I
> didn't want to do any integration work to validate it beyond the
> basics, which would have meant dipping into the Red Hat kernel symbol
> tracking infrastructure. I don't have time for that right now. If
> someone else does, they can be my guest. I just don't feel comfortable
> giving either without *actually* going that far.


If you provided a Reviewed-by and/or Tested-by tag, they would not be stripped.

I would not say you are unqualified in terms of skills or abilities.
However, this is not how the Acked-by tag is typically used.
As Miguel mentioned, "Acked-by-User" or "Acked-by: # As primary user"
could be an option, but I am not sure if they would gain
sufficient consensus.

Code reviews and tests are always appreciated.
The Reviewed-by and Tested-by tags are open to everyone.

If you are uncomfortable with a Reviewed-by or Tested-by tag,
I cannot think of any other alternatives.
Luis Chamberlain Dec. 11, 2024, 4:19 a.m. UTC | #11
On Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 11:27:06PM +0900, Masahiro Yamada wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 9:42 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 10:34 AM Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@google.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 4:41 PM Miguel Ojeda
> > > <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2024 at 2:29 PM Neal Gompa <neal@gompa.dev> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > As my Acked-by was removed, I'm sorry to say that there is no point
> > > > > for me to provide feedback since it is unwanted.
> > > > >
> > > > > I hope it lands soon, but I also hope the people here who decided that
> > > > > a person's efforts aren't worth recording because they don't
> > > > > personally know them should reflect on this too. It's a good way to
> > > > > keep people from coming into the community for the long term.
> > > >
> > > > Hopefully this reply helps -- apologies to anyone if I am overstepping.
> > > >
> > > > On one side, it is true that Acked-by is typically used by people that
> > > > is responsible for the code one way or another, because the tag is
> > > > meant for them to acknowledge they are OK with the change going in,
> > > > and so I can see the argument that restricting it for that purpose
> > > > only may help avoid confusion later on reading the log.
> > > >
> > > > On the other hand, someone being willing to put their name on a patch
> > > > is very valuable, whoever they are, and whatever the tag name is.
> > > > Moreover, it is also true that, Acked-by may be used here in a "as a
> > > > key user downstream, this looks reasonable and satisfies our needs"
> > > > sense.
> > > >
> > > > Finally, sometimes new tags are invented on the fly because there is
> > > > no good fit, too.
> > > >
> > > > Either way, I don't think anyone wanted to disregard your efforts or
> > > > to be rude to you in particular, but rather wanted to keep tags usage
> > > > aligned to how they view them or how they use them in their subsystem.
> > > > The Tested-by was still wanted, so I doubt their goal was to remove
> > > > you from the log or to make you feel unwelcomed.
> > >
> > > Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I could, Miguel. Neal,
> > > I do appreciate your feedback, and I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear
> > > enough in my previous emails. I would very much welcome your
> > > Tested-by, or another suitable tag that's acceptable to both you and
> > > Masahiro.
> > >
> >
> > Honestly, I don't think it's worth it if my tag is going to be
> > stripped simply because someone thinks I'm "unqualified". If you want
> > more people participating in these things, doing stuff like that is
> > definitely not the way to do it. It's not like people haven't had a
> > chance to know me or even just look me up to know I'm not just blowing
> > smoke. I definitely feel like I'm being disregarded. :(
> >
> > The sole reason I didn't give a Reviewed-by or Tested-by is that I
> > didn't want to do any integration work to validate it beyond the
> > basics, which would have meant dipping into the Red Hat kernel symbol
> > tracking infrastructure. I don't have time for that right now. If
> > someone else does, they can be my guest. I just don't feel comfortable
> > giving either without *actually* going that far.
> 
> 
> If you provided a Reviewed-by and/or Tested-by tag, they would not be stripped.
> 
> I would not say you are unqualified in terms of skills or abilities.
> However, this is not how the Acked-by tag is typically used.
> As Miguel mentioned, "Acked-by-User" or "Acked-by: # As primary user"
> could be an option, but I am not sure if they would gain
> sufficient consensus.
> 
> Code reviews and tests are always appreciated.
> The Reviewed-by and Tested-by tags are open to everyone.
> 
> If you are uncomfortable with a Reviewed-by or Tested-by tag,
> I cannot think of any other alternatives.

I think we just need to update docs that Acked-by is a *tool* mechanism
to help maintainers in their quest to find sanity in determining if a
patch is ready.

Clearly, if I don't know a contributor and they send an Acked-by, it
does not matter if was Donald Knuth (CS algorithmic lord), or John
Grisham (author of intense legal drama books), what really is of value
to the maintainer is the the qualitative appreciation over the
maintainer's own perception of the value of that Acked-by is going to
help the maintainer own's dreadful quest to find sanity in a review
process in answering if a patch series is ready.

An unknown developer to a maintainer, as qualified as they may be, could
provide an Acked-by, but the utlitiarian value is completely subjective
to the domain of review and so up to the maintainer's own critique. The
value in Acked-by is in helping the maintainer. There is a hidden
context of trust of behind the appreciation of maintainer's value of
a simple Acked-by.

A series of Reviewed-by tags over time on a subsystem can help a
maintainer appreciate the value of a future Acked-by by the same
developer. In fact the *more utilitrarian appreciation* for a maintainer
will be how often said reviewer is helping find *bugs* in previous patch
series, not how many Reviewed-by tags or Acked-by tags they use. The act
of finding real issues and thinking critically about the big picture
over and over of on different patchsets can help a maintainer garner
confidence in future Reviewed-by tags from the developer. Helping a
maintainer review patchsets and get authors to fix issues until it is
mind numbingly clear the patchset is ready is a way to help a maintainer
appreciate future Reviewed-by or Acked-by tags from that developer.

Since anyone can also provide a Tested-by, it does not mean that there
cannot also be subjective association to it as well. A Tested-by a reporter
of a complex regression is of most value. A Tested-by a random new developer
for the same complex regression may be meaningless to that same maintainer
unless the same original reporter also conirms the issues of a
regression are fixed.

Keeping a tag is not too important as well, we sometimes loose them even
for developers engaging daily, what is more important is *helping the
maintainer* on their quest to ensure proper state of affairs of the
patchset and to remain sane.

  Luis