Re: [PATCH v7 00/17] Add support for Clang LTO

Kees Cook
2020-12-01T17:32:00Z

On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 12:01:31PM +0000, Will Deacon wrote:
> Hi Sami,
>
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 02:07:14PM -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 v7 brings back arm64 support as Will has now staged the
> > prerequisite memory ordering patches [1], and drops x86_64 while we work
> > on fixing the remaining objtool warnings [2].
>
> Sounds like you're going to post a v8, but that's the plan for merging
> that? The arm64 parts look pretty good to me now.

I haven't seen Masahiro comment on this in a while, so given the review
history and its use (for years now) in Android, I will carry v8 (assuming
all is fine with it) it in -next unless there are objections.

--
Kees Cook