[PATCH 00/14] Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[PATCH 00/14] Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[Nathan Chancellor]

The current minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel is 15.0.0.
However, there are two deficiencies compared to GCC that were fixed in
LLVM 17 that are starting to become more noticeable.

The first was a bug in LLVM's scope checker [1], where all labels in a
function were validated as potential targets of an asm goto statement,
even if they were not listed in the asm goto statement as targets. This
becomes particularly problematic when the cleanup attribute is used, as

  asm goto(... : label_a);
  ...
label_a:
  ...
  int var __free(foo);
  asm goto(... : label_b);
  ...
label_b:
  ...

will trigger an error since the scope checker will complain that the
cleanup variable would be skipped when jumping from the first asm goto
to label_b (which obviously cannot happen). This issue was the catalyst
for commit e2ffa15b9baa ("kbuild: Disable CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO_OUTPUT on
clang < 17"). Unfortunately, this issue is reproducible with regular asm
goto in addition to asm goto with outputs, so that change was not
entirely sufficient to avoid the issue altogether. As asm goto has
effectively been required since commit a0a12c3ed057 ("asm goto:
eradicate CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO") and the usage of the cleanup attribute
continues to grow across the tree, raising the minimum to a version that
avoids this issue altogether is a better long term solution than
attempting to workaround it at every spot where it happens.

The second issue is an incompatibility with GCC 8.1+ around variables
marked with const being valid constant expressions for _Static_assert
and other macros [2]. With GCC 8.1 being the minimum supported version
since commit 118c40b7b503 ("kbuild: require gcc-8 and binutils-2.30"),
this incompatibility becomes more of a maintenance burden since only
clang-15 and clang-16 are affected by it.

Looking at the clang version of various major distributions through
Docker images, no one should be left behind as a result of this bump, as
the old ones cannot clear the current minimum of 15.0.0.

  archlinux:latest              clang version 22.1.3
  debian:oldoldstable-slim      Debian clang version 11.0.1-2
  debian:oldstable-slim         Debian clang version 14.0.6
  debian:stable-slim            Debian clang version 19.1.7 (3+b1)
  debian:testing-slim           Debian clang version 21.1.8 (3+b1)
  debian:unstable-slim          Debian clang version 21.1.8 (7+b1)
  fedora:42                     clang version 20.1.8 (Fedora 20.1.8-4.fc42)
  fedora:latest                 clang version 21.1.8 (Fedora 21.1.8-4.fc43)
  fedora:44                     clang version 22.1.1 (Fedora 22.1.1-2.fc44)
  fedora:rawhide                clang version 22.1.3 (Fedora 22.1.3-1.fc45)
  opensuse/leap:latest          clang version 17.0.6
  opensuse/tumbleweed:latest    clang version 21.1.8
  ubuntu:jammy                  Ubuntu clang version 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
  ubuntu:noble                  Ubuntu clang version 18.1.3 (1ubuntu1)
  ubuntu:questing               Ubuntu clang version 20.1.8 (0ubuntu4)
  ubuntu:resolute               Ubuntu clang version 21.1.8 (6ubuntu1)

17.0.1 is chosen as the minimum instead of 17.0.0 to ensure that the
particular version of LLVM 17 has the two aforementioned bugs fixed, as
the second was fixed during the 17.0.0 release candidate phase and it
was not until LLVM 18 that LLVM adopted the scheme of x.0.0 being a
prerelease version and x.1.0 is a release version [3] to help with
scenarios such as this.

The first patch in the series does the actual bump. The remaining
patches are cleanups of workarounds for various issues that are no
longer needed with the bump.

I plan to take this via the Kbuild tree for 7.2, please provide Acks as
necessary.

[1]: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/f023f5cdb2e6c19026f04a15b5a935c041835d14
[2]: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/0b2d5b967d98375793897295d651f58f6fbd3034
[3]: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/4532617ae420056bf32f6403dde07fb99d276a49

---
Nathan Chancellor (14):
      kbuild: Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1
      security/Kconfig.hardening: Remove tautological condition from CC_HAS_ZERO_CALL_USED_REGS
      security/Kconfig.hardening: Remove tautological condition from FORTIFY_SOURCE
      security/Kconfig.hardening: Remove tautological condition from CC_HAS_RANDSTRUCT
      arch/Kconfig: Remove tautological conditions from HAS_LTO_CLANG
      arch/Kconfig: Remove tautological condition from AUTOFDO_CLANG
      ARM: Drop tautological ld.lld conditions from ARCH_MULTI_V4{,T}
      riscv: Remove tautological condition from selection of ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI
      riscv: Drop tautological condition from TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC
      scripts/Makefile.warn: Drop -Wformat handling for clang < 16
      x86/build: Drop unused '-ffreestanding' addition to KBUILD_CFLAGS
      x86/module: Revert "Deal with GOT based stack cookie load on Clang < 17"
      x86/entry/vdso32: Remove conditional omission of '.cfi_offset eflags'
      kbuild: Remove check for broken scoping with clang < 17 in CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO_OUTPUT

 Documentation/process/changes.rst      |  2 +-
 arch/Kconfig                           |  5 +----
 arch/arm/Kconfig.platforms             |  4 ----
 arch/riscv/Kconfig                     | 16 +++++++---------
 arch/x86/Makefile                      |  5 -----
 arch/x86/entry/vdso/vdso32/sigreturn.S | 10 ----------
 arch/x86/include/asm/elf.h             |  5 ++---
 arch/x86/kernel/module.c               | 15 ---------------
 init/Kconfig                           |  3 ---
 scripts/Makefile.warn                  | 10 ----------
 scripts/min-tool-version.sh            |  2 +-
 security/Kconfig.hardening             |  8 --------
 12 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 73 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 254f49634ee16a731174d2ae34bc50bd5f45e731
change-id: 20260422-bump-minimum-supported-llvm-version-to-17-b4638a58b043

Best regards,
--  
Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>

[PATCH 01/14] kbuild: Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[Nathan Chancellor]

The current minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel is 15.0.0.
However, there are two deficiencies compared to GCC that were fixed in
LLVM 17 that are starting to become more noticeable.

The first was a bug in LLVM's scope checker [1], where all labels in a
function were validated as potential targets of an asm goto statement,
even if they were not listed in the asm goto statement as targets. This
becomes particularly problematic when the cleanup attribute is used, as

  asm goto(... : label_a);
  ...
label_a:
  ...
  int var __free(foo);
  asm goto(... : label_b);
  ...
label_b:
  ...

will trigger an error since the scope checker will complain that the
cleanup variable would be skipped when jumping from the first asm goto
to label_b (which obviously cannot happen). This issue was the catalyst
for commit e2ffa15b9baa ("kbuild: Disable CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO_OUTPUT on
clang < 17"). Unfortunately, this issue is reproducible with regular asm
goto in addition to asm goto with outputs, so that change was not
entirely sufficient to avoid the issue altogether. As asm goto has
effectively been required since commit a0a12c3ed057 ("asm goto:
eradicate CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO") and the usage of the cleanup attribute
continues to grow across the tree, raising the minimum to a version that
avoids this issue altogether is a better long term solution than
attempting to workaround it at every spot where it happens.

The second issue is an incompatibility with GCC 8.1+ around variables
marked with const being valid constant expressions for _Static_assert
and other macros [2]. With GCC 8.1 being the minimum supported version
since commit 118c40b7b503 ("kbuild: require gcc-8 and binutils-2.30"),
this incompatibility becomes more of a maintenance burden since only
clang-15 and clang-16 are affected by it.

Looking at the clang version of various major distributions through
Docker images, no one should be left behind as a result of this bump, as
the old ones cannot clear the current minimum of 15.0.0.

  archlinux:latest              clang version 22.1.3
  debian:oldoldstable-slim      Debian clang version 11.0.1-2
  debian:oldstable-slim         Debian clang version 14.0.6
  debian:stable-slim            Debian clang version 19.1.7 (3+b1)
  debian:testing-slim           Debian clang version 21.1.8 (3+b1)
  debian:unstable-slim          Debian clang version 21.1.8 (7+b1)
  fedora:42                     clang version 20.1.8 (Fedora 20.1.8-4.fc42)
  fedora:latest                 clang version 21.1.8 (Fedora 21.1.8-4.fc43)
  fedora:44                     clang version 22.1.1 (Fedora 22.1.1-2.fc44)
  fedora:rawhide                clang version 22.1.3 (Fedora 22.1.3-1.fc45)
  opensuse/leap:latest          clang version 17.0.6
  opensuse/tumbleweed:latest    clang version 21.1.8
  ubuntu:jammy                  Ubuntu clang version 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
  ubuntu:noble                  Ubuntu clang version 18.1.3 (1ubuntu1)
  ubuntu:questing               Ubuntu clang version 20.1.8 (0ubuntu4)
  ubuntu:resolute               Ubuntu clang version 21.1.8 (6ubuntu1)

17.0.1 is chosen as the minimum instead of 17.0.0 to ensure that the
particular version of LLVM 17 has the two aforementioned bugs fixed, as
the second was fixed during the 17.0.0 release candidate phase and it
was not until LLVM 18 that LLVM adopted the scheme of x.0.0 being a
prerelease version and x.1.0 is a release version [3] to help with
scenarios such as this.

Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/f023f5cdb2e6c19026f04a15b5a935c041835d14 [1]
Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/0b2d5b967d98375793897295d651f58f6fbd3034 [2]
Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/4532617ae420056bf32f6403dde07fb99d276a49 [3]
Signed-off-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
---
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org
---
 Documentation/process/changes.rst | 2 +-
 scripts/min-tool-version.sh       | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/changes.rst b/Documentation/process/changes.rst
index 9a99037270ff..b9afce768446 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/changes.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/changes.rst
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ bindgen (optional)     0.71.1           bindgen --version
 binutils               2.30             ld -v
 bison                  2.0              bison --version
 btrfs-progs            0.18             btrfs --version
-Clang/LLVM (optional)  15.0.0           clang --version
+Clang/LLVM (optional)  17.0.1           clang --version
 e2fsprogs              1.41.4           e2fsck -V
 flex                   2.5.35           flex --version
 gdb                    7.2              gdb --version
diff --git a/scripts/min-tool-version.sh b/scripts/min-tool-version.sh
index b96ec2d379b6..ea2689bc9641 100755
--- a/scripts/min-tool-version.sh
+++ b/scripts/min-tool-version.sh
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ llvm)
 	if [ "$SRCARCH" = loongarch ]; then
 		echo 18.0.0
 	else
-		echo 15.0.0
+		echo 17.0.1
 	fi
 	;;
 rustc)

-- 
2.54.0

Re: [PATCH 01/14] kbuild: Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[Nicolas Schier]

On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 10:59:07PM -0400, Nathan Chancellor wrote:
> The current minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel is 15.0.0.
> However, there are two deficiencies compared to GCC that were fixed in
> LLVM 17 that are starting to become more noticeable.
> 
> The first was a bug in LLVM's scope checker [1], where all labels in a
> function were validated as potential targets of an asm goto statement,
> even if they were not listed in the asm goto statement as targets. This
> becomes particularly problematic when the cleanup attribute is used, as
> 
>   asm goto(... : label_a);
>   ...
> label_a:
>   ...
>   int var __free(foo);
>   asm goto(... : label_b);
>   ...
> label_b:
>   ...
> 
> will trigger an error since the scope checker will complain that the
> cleanup variable would be skipped when jumping from the first asm goto
> to label_b (which obviously cannot happen). This issue was the catalyst
> for commit e2ffa15b9baa ("kbuild: Disable CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO_OUTPUT on
> clang < 17"). Unfortunately, this issue is reproducible with regular asm
> goto in addition to asm goto with outputs, so that change was not
> entirely sufficient to avoid the issue altogether. As asm goto has
> effectively been required since commit a0a12c3ed057 ("asm goto:
> eradicate CC_HAS_ASM_GOTO") and the usage of the cleanup attribute
> continues to grow across the tree, raising the minimum to a version that
> avoids this issue altogether is a better long term solution than
> attempting to workaround it at every spot where it happens.
> 
> The second issue is an incompatibility with GCC 8.1+ around variables
> marked with const being valid constant expressions for _Static_assert
> and other macros [2]. With GCC 8.1 being the minimum supported version
> since commit 118c40b7b503 ("kbuild: require gcc-8 and binutils-2.30"),
> this incompatibility becomes more of a maintenance burden since only
> clang-15 and clang-16 are affected by it.
> 
> Looking at the clang version of various major distributions through
> Docker images, no one should be left behind as a result of this bump, as
> the old ones cannot clear the current minimum of 15.0.0.
> 
>   archlinux:latest              clang version 22.1.3
>   debian:oldoldstable-slim      Debian clang version 11.0.1-2
>   debian:oldstable-slim         Debian clang version 14.0.6
>   debian:stable-slim            Debian clang version 19.1.7 (3+b1)
>   debian:testing-slim           Debian clang version 21.1.8 (3+b1)
>   debian:unstable-slim          Debian clang version 21.1.8 (7+b1)
>   fedora:42                     clang version 20.1.8 (Fedora 20.1.8-4.fc42)
>   fedora:latest                 clang version 21.1.8 (Fedora 21.1.8-4.fc43)
>   fedora:44                     clang version 22.1.1 (Fedora 22.1.1-2.fc44)
>   fedora:rawhide                clang version 22.1.3 (Fedora 22.1.3-1.fc45)
>   opensuse/leap:latest          clang version 17.0.6
>   opensuse/tumbleweed:latest    clang version 21.1.8
>   ubuntu:jammy                  Ubuntu clang version 14.0.0-1ubuntu1.1
>   ubuntu:noble                  Ubuntu clang version 18.1.3 (1ubuntu1)
>   ubuntu:questing               Ubuntu clang version 20.1.8 (0ubuntu4)
>   ubuntu:resolute               Ubuntu clang version 21.1.8 (6ubuntu1)
> 
> 17.0.1 is chosen as the minimum instead of 17.0.0 to ensure that the
> particular version of LLVM 17 has the two aforementioned bugs fixed, as
> the second was fixed during the 17.0.0 release candidate phase and it
> was not until LLVM 18 that LLVM adopted the scheme of x.0.0 being a
> prerelease version and x.1.0 is a release version [3] to help with
> scenarios such as this.
> 
> Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/f023f5cdb2e6c19026f04a15b5a935c041835d14 [1]
> Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/0b2d5b967d98375793897295d651f58f6fbd3034 [2]
> Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/4532617ae420056bf32f6403dde07fb99d276a49 [3]
> Signed-off-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
> ---
> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
> Cc: Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>
> Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org
> ---
>  Documentation/process/changes.rst | 2 +-
>  scripts/min-tool-version.sh       | 2 +-
>  2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/process/changes.rst b/Documentation/process/changes.rst
> index 9a99037270ff..b9afce768446 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/changes.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/changes.rst
> @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ bindgen (optional)     0.71.1           bindgen --version
>  binutils               2.30             ld -v
>  bison                  2.0              bison --version
>  btrfs-progs            0.18             btrfs --version
> -Clang/LLVM (optional)  15.0.0           clang --version
> +Clang/LLVM (optional)  17.0.1           clang --version
>  e2fsprogs              1.41.4           e2fsck -V
>  flex                   2.5.35           flex --version
>  gdb                    7.2              gdb --version

FTR: The translations
Documentation/translations/{it_IT,pt_BR}/process/changes.rst become now
even more outdated.

Acked-by: Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org>

Re: [PATCH 01/14] kbuild: Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[Daniel Pereira]

On Tue, May 5, 2026 at 1:11 PM Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org> wrote:
>
>> FTR: The translations
>>Documentation/translations/{it\_IT,pt\_BR}/process/changes.rst become now
>>even more outdated.
>
>>Acked-by: Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org>
>

Hi Nicolas,

Just confirming that I will make the necessary corrections to the
changes.rst Portuguese translation (pt\_BR) in the next few days.

Thanks,

Daniel Pereira
Linux Kernel Maintainer pt\_BR

Re: [PATCH 01/14] kbuild: Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[Nathan Chancellor]

Hi Daniel,

On Tue, May 05, 2026 at 03:26:40PM -0300, Daniel Pereira wrote:
> On Tue, May 5, 2026 at 1:11 PM Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> >> FTR: The translations
> >>Documentation/translations/{it\_IT,pt\_BR}/process/changes.rst become now
> >>even more outdated.
> >
> >>Acked-by: Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org>
> >
> 
> Hi Nicolas,
> 
> Just confirming that I will make the necessary corrections to the
> changes.rst Portuguese translation (pt\_BR) in the next few days.

Thanks but I think I can just update the version number in this patch
when I send v2, as the update should happen atomically. If you patch it
separately, it might not be true depending on when my change is merged.

-- 
Cheers,
Nathan

Re: [PATCH 01/14] kbuild: Bump minimum version of LLVM for building the kernel to 17.0.1

[Daniel Pereira]

On Wed, May 6, 2026 at 3:21 AM Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org> wrote:

>
>> Thanks but I think I can just update the version number in this patch
>> when I send v2, as the update should happen atomically. If you patch it
>> separately, it might not be true depending on when my change is merged.
>
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Nathan

Hi Nathan,

Thanks for your reply. I still needed to adjust the changes.rst file
for the Portuguese translation (pt_BR), as I found it was quite
outdated compared to the current English document.

Thanks,

Daniel Pereira