[PATCH v10 2/6] x86/asm: Avoid emitting DWARF CFI for non-VDSO

Jens Remus
2026-05-05T12:34:21Z

It was decided years ago that .cfi_* annotations aren't maintainable in
the kernel. They were replaced by objtool unwind hints. For the kernel
proper, ensure the CFI_* macros don't do anything.

On the other hand the VDSO library *does* use them, so user space can
unwind through it.

Make sure these macros only work for VDSO. They aren't actually being
used outside of VDSO anyway, so there's no functional change.

[ Jens Remus: Define CFI_SIGNAL_FRAME for !BUILD_VDSO. ]

Signed-off-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Acked-by: H. Peter Anvin (Intel) <hpa@zytor.com>
Signed-off-by: Jens Remus <jremus@linux.ibm.com>
---
arch/x86/include/asm/dwarf2.h | 52 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
1 file changed, 36 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/dwarf2.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/dwarf2.h
index 09c9684d3ad6..13e2e64ef265 100644
--- a/arch/x86/include/asm/dwarf2.h
+++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/dwarf2.h
@@ -6,6 +6,15 @@
#warning "asm/dwarf2.h should be only included in pure assembly files"
#endif

+#ifdef BUILD_VDSO
+
+ /*
+ * For the vDSO, emit both runtime unwind information and debug
+ * symbols for the .dbg file.
+ */
+
+ .cfi_sections .eh_frame, .debug_frame
+
#define CFI_STARTPROC .cfi_startproc
#define CFI_ENDPROC .cfi_endproc
#define CFI_DEF_CFA .cfi_def_cfa
@@ -22,21 +31,32 @@
#define CFI_ESCAPE .cfi_escape
#define CFI_SIGNAL_FRAME .cfi_signal_frame

-#ifndef BUILD_VDSO
- /*
- * Emit CFI data in .debug_frame sections, not .eh_frame sections.
- * The latter we currently just discard since we don't do DWARF
- * unwinding at runtime. So only the offline DWARF information is
- * useful to anyone. Note we should not use this directive if we
- * ever decide to enable DWARF unwinding at runtime.
- */
- .cfi_sections .debug_frame
-#else
- /*
- * For the vDSO, emit both runtime unwind information and debug
- * symbols for the .dbg file.
- */
- .cfi_sections .eh_frame, .debug_frame
-#endif
+#else /* !BUILD_VDSO */
+
+/*
+ * On x86, these macros aren't used outside VDSO. As well they shouldn't be:
+ * they're fragile and very difficult to maintain.
+ */
+
+.macro nocfi args:vararg
+.endm
+
+#define CFI_STARTPROC nocfi
+#define CFI_ENDPROC nocfi
+#define CFI_DEF_CFA nocfi
+#define CFI_DEF_CFA_REGISTER nocfi
+#define CFI_DEF_CFA_OFFSET nocfi
+#define CFI_ADJUST_CFA_OFFSET nocfi
+#define CFI_OFFSET nocfi
+#define CFI_REL_OFFSET nocfi
+#define CFI_REGISTER nocfi
+#define CFI_RESTORE nocfi
+#define CFI_REMEMBER_STATE nocfi
+#define CFI_RESTORE_STATE nocfi
+#define CFI_UNDEFINED nocfi
+#define CFI_ESCAPE nocfi
+#define CFI_SIGNAL_FRAME nocfi
+
+#endif /* !BUILD_VDSO */

#endif /* _ASM_X86_DWARF2_H */
--
2.51.0