linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/8] linker-section array fix and clean ups

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Date:   Fri, 6 Nov 2020 17:03:45 +0100
From:   Jessica Yu <jeyu@...nel.org>
To:     Johan Hovold <johan@...nel.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Rob Herring <robh+dt@...nel.org>,
        Frank Rowand <frowand.list@...il.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@...ogle.com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
        Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@...il.com>,
        David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Jakub Jelinek <jakub@...hat.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Daniel Kurtz <djkurtz@...omium.org>,
        linux-arch@...r.kernel.org, linux-m68k@...ts.linux-m68k.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/8] linker-section array fix and clean ups

+++ Johan Hovold [03/11/20 18:57 +0100]:
>We rely on the linker to create arrays for a number of things including
>kernel parameters and device-tree-match entries.
>
>The stride of these linker-section arrays obviously needs to match the
>expectations of the code accessing them or bad things will happen.
>
>One thing to watch out for is that gcc is known to increase the
>alignment of larger objects with static extent as an optimisation (on
>x86), but this can be suppressed by using the aligned attribute when
>declaring entries.
>
>We've been relying on this behaviour for 16 years for kernel parameters
>(and other structures) and it indeed hasn't changed since the
>introduction of the aligned attribute in gcc 3.1 (see align_variable()
>in [1]).
>
>Occasionally this gcc optimisation do cause problems which have instead
>been worked around in various creative ways including using indirection
>through an array of pointers. This was originally done for tracepoints
>[2] after a number of failed attempts to create properly aligned arrays,
>and the approach was later reused for module-version attributes [3] and
>earlycon entries.

>[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20110126222622.GA10794@Krystal/

Hi Johan,

So unfortunately, I am not familiar enough with the semantics of gcc's
aligned attribute. AFAICT from the patch you linked in [2], the
original purpose of the pointer indirection workaround was to avoid
relying on (potentially inconsistent) compiler-specific behavior with
respect to the aligned attribute. The main concern was potential
up-alignment being done by gcc (or the linker) despite the desired
alignment being specified. Indeed, the gcc documentation also states
that the aligned attribute only specifies the *minimum* alignment,
although there's no guarantee that up-alignment wouldn't occur.

So I guess my question is, is there some implicit guarantee that
specifying alignment by type via __alignof__ that's supposed to
prevent gcc from up-aligning? Or are we just assuming that gcc won't
increase the alignment? The gcc docs don't seem to clarify this
unfortunately.

Thanks,

Jessica