[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>


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[PATCH 08/14] riscv: Remove tautological condition from selection of ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI

[Nathan Chancellor]

Now that the minimum supported version of LLVM for building the kernel
has been raised to 17.0.1, the condition of the selection of
CONFIG_ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI is always true, so it can be removed.

Signed-off-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
---
Cc: Paul Walmsley <pjw@kernel.org>
Cc: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>
Cc: Albert Ou <aou@eecs.berkeley.edu>
Cc: Alexandre Ghiti <alex@ghiti.fr>
Cc: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Cc: linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org
Cc: linux-hardening@vger.kernel.org
---
 arch/riscv/Kconfig | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/riscv/Kconfig b/arch/riscv/Kconfig
index d235396c4514..7ffbf6032b61 100644
--- a/arch/riscv/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/riscv/Kconfig
@@ -61,8 +61,7 @@ config RISCV
 	select ARCH_OPTIONAL_KERNEL_RWX_DEFAULT
 	select ARCH_STACKWALK
 	select ARCH_SUPPORTS_ATOMIC_RMW
-	# clang >= 17: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/62fa708ceb027713b386c7e0efda994f8bdc27e2
-	select ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI if (!CC_IS_CLANG || CLANG_VERSION >= 170000)
+	select ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI
 	select ARCH_SUPPORTS_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC if MMU
 	select ARCH_SUPPORTS_HUGE_PFNMAP if TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE
 	select ARCH_SUPPORTS_HUGETLBFS if MMU

-- 
2.54.0


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[PATCH 09/14] riscv: Drop tautological condition from TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC

[Nathan Chancellor]

Now that the minimum supported version of LLVM for building the kernel
has been raised to 17.0.1, the Clang dependency part of
CONFIG_TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC is always false, so it can be
removed. Adjust the help text to remove mention of Clang < 17, as it is
irrelevant for the kernel after the minimum supported bump.

Signed-off-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>
---
Cc: Paul Walmsley <pjw@kernel.org>
Cc: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>
Cc: Albert Ou <aou@eecs.berkeley.edu>
Cc: Alexandre Ghiti <alex@ghiti.fr>
Cc: linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org
---
 arch/riscv/Kconfig | 13 ++++++-------
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/riscv/Kconfig b/arch/riscv/Kconfig
index 7ffbf6032b61..c742c42fd39b 100644
--- a/arch/riscv/Kconfig
+++ b/arch/riscv/Kconfig
@@ -873,19 +873,18 @@ config TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_EXPLICIT_ZICSR_ZIFENCEI
 	  and Zifencei are supported in binutils from version 2.36 onwards.
 	  To make life easier, and avoid forcing toolchains that default to a
 	  newer ISA spec to version 2.2, relax the check to binutils >= 2.36.
-	  For clang < 17 or GCC < 11.3.0, for which this is not possible or need
-	  special treatment, this is dealt with in TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC.
+	  For GCC < 11.3.0, for which this is not possible or need special
+	  treatment, this is dealt with in TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC.
 
 config TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC
 	def_bool y
 	depends on TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_EXPLICIT_ZICSR_ZIFENCEI
-	# https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/22e199e6afb1263c943c0c0d4498694e15bf8a16
 	# https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commit;h=d29f5d6ab513c52fd872f532c492e35ae9fd6671
-	depends on (CC_IS_CLANG && CLANG_VERSION < 170000) || (CC_IS_GCC && GCC_VERSION < 110300)
+	depends on CC_IS_GCC && GCC_VERSION < 110300
 	help
-	  Certain versions of clang and GCC do not support zicsr and zifencei via
-	  -march. This option causes an older ISA spec compatible with these older
-	  versions of clang and GCC to be passed to GAS, which has the same result
+	  Certain versions of GCC do not support zicsr and zifencei via -march.
+	  This option causes an older ISA spec compatible with these older
+	  versions of GCC to be passed to GAS, which has the same result
 	  as passing zicsr and zifencei to -march.
 
 config FPU

-- 
2.54.0


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Re: [PATCH 08/14] riscv: Remove tautological condition from selection of ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI

[Paul Walmsley]

On Tue, 28 Apr 2026, Nathan Chancellor wrote:

> Now that the minimum supported version of LLVM for building the kernel
> has been raised to 17.0.1, the condition of the selection of
> CONFIG_ARCH_SUPPORTS_CFI is always true, so it can be removed.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>

Acked-by: Paul Walmsley <pjw@kernel.org> # arch/riscv

- Paul

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Re: [PATCH 09/14] riscv: Drop tautological condition from TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC

[Paul Walmsley]

On Tue, 28 Apr 2026, Nathan Chancellor wrote:

> Now that the minimum supported version of LLVM for building the kernel
> has been raised to 17.0.1, the Clang dependency part of
> CONFIG_TOOLCHAIN_NEEDS_OLD_ISA_SPEC is always false, so it can be
> removed. Adjust the help text to remove mention of Clang < 17, as it is
> irrelevant for the kernel after the minimum supported bump.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org> 

Acked-by: Paul Walmsley <pjw@kernel.org>  # arch/riscv


- Paul

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