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Subject: Re: [PATCH 5.8 000/186] 5.8.8-rc1 review
To:     Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
Cc:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        "torvalds@linux-foundation.org" <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        Shuah Khan <shuah@kernel.org>, patches@kernelci.org,
        Ben Hutchings <ben.hutchings@codethink.co.uk>,
        lkft-triage@lists.linaro.org, stable <stable@vger.kernel.org>,
        Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>,
        Michal Marek <michal.lkml@markovi.net>,
        linux-kbuild <linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org>
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From:   Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
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Message-ID: <23b60a5d-1d21-7fd3-a125-29e564d5b753@roeck-us.net>
Date:   Thu, 10 Sep 2020 06:47:32 -0700
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On 9/9/20 11:36 PM, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> Hi Günter,
> 
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 8:24 PM Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> wrote:
>> On 9/9/20 11:01 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>>> On Wed, Sep 09, 2020 at 09:47:05AM -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Sep 08, 2020 at 05:22:22PM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>>>>> This is the start of the stable review cycle for the 5.8.8 release.
>>>>> There are 186 patches in this series, all will be posted as a response
>>>>> to this one.  If anyone has any issues with these being applied, please
>>>>> let me know.
>>>>>
>>>>> Responses should be made by Thu, 10 Sep 2020 15:21:57 +0000.
>>>>> Anything received after that time might be too late.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Build results:
>>>>      total: 154 pass: 153 fail: 1
>>>> Failed builds:
>>>>      powerpc:allmodconfig
>>>> Qemu test results:
>>>>      total: 430 pass: 430 fail: 0
>>>>
>>>> The powerpc problem is the same as before:
>>>>
>>>> Inconsistent kallsyms data
>>>> Try make KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS=1 as a workaround
>>>>
>>>> KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS=1 doesn't help. The problem is sporadic, elusive, and all
>>>> but impossible to bisect. The same build passes on another system, for example,
>>>> with a different load pattern. It may pass with -j30 and fail with -j40.
>>>> The problem started at some point after v5.8, and got worse over time; by now
>>>> it almost always happens. I'd be happy to debug if there is a means to do it,
>>>> but I don't have an idea where to even start. I'd disable KALLSYMS in my
>>>> test configurations, but the symbol is selected from various places and thus
>>>> difficult to disable. So unless I stop building ppc:allmodconfig entirely
>>>> we'll just have to live with the failure.
>>>
>>> Ah, I was worried when I saw your dashboard orange for this kernel.
>>>
>>> I guess the powerpc maintainers don't care?  Sad :(
>>>
>>
>> Not sure if the powerpc architecture is to blame. Bisect attempts end up
>> all over the place, and don't typically include any powerpc changes.
>> I have no idea how kallsyms is created, but my suspicion is that it is
>> a generic problem and that powerpc just happens to hit it right now.
>> I have added KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS=1 to several architecture builds over
>> time, when they reported similar problems. Right now I set it for
>> alpha, arm, and m68k. powerpc just happens to be the first architecture
>> where it doesn't help.
> 
> This is a generic problem, cfr. scripts/link-vmlinux.sh:
> 
>         # kallsyms support
>         # Generate section listing all symbols and add it into vmlinux
>         # It's a three step process:
>         # 1)  Link .tmp_vmlinux1 so it has all symbols and sections,
>         #     but __kallsyms is empty.
>         #     Running kallsyms on that gives us .tmp_kallsyms1.o with
>         #     the right size
>         # 2)  Link .tmp_vmlinux2 so it now has a __kallsyms section of
>         #     the right size, but due to the added section, some
>         #     addresses have shifted.
>         #     From here, we generate a correct .tmp_kallsyms2.o
>         # 3)  That link may have expanded the kernel image enough that
>         #     more linker branch stubs / trampolines had to be added, which
>         #     introduces new names, which further expands kallsyms. Do another
>         #     pass if that is the case. In theory it's possible this results
>         #     in even more stubs, but unlikely.
>         #     KALLSYMS_EXTRA_PASS=1 may also used to debug or work around
>         #     other bugs.
> 
Ah, that explains a lot.

> Adding even more kallsyms_steps may help (or not, if you're really
> unlucky).  Perhaps the number of passes should be handled automatically
> (i.e. run until it succeeds, with a sane (16?) upper limit to avoid
>  endless builds, so it can still fail, in theory).
> 

Turns out it needs four steps. I prepared a patch to try up to 8 steps.
We'll see if it gets accepted.

Thanks,
Guenter