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Re: A new approach to verify changes in the Linux kernel ABI



On Mon, 2016-03-14 at 19:38 +0300, Ponomarenko Andrey wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've released new versions of the abi-compliance-checker and abi-
> dumper tools that are now able to easily verify compatibility of
> changes in the Linux kernel ABI: https://github.com/lvc/
> 
> 1. The kernel should be compiled with CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=y and
> CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_REDUCED=n additional options.
>
> 2. Create ABI dump for vmlinux:
> 
>     abi-dumper vmlinux -vnum 4.4.5 -kernel-export -o ABI.dump
> 
> 3. Compare ABI dumps to produce report:
> 
>     abi-compliance-checker -l kernel -bin -old ABI-0.dump -new ABI-
> 1.dump

Does this take symbol 'versions' (CRCs) into account?  What does it
tell us that our existing buildcheck.py script doesn't?

> The new -kernel-export option of the abi-dumper is introduced to dump
> only public exported symbols of the kernel, i.e. declared in the
> ksymtab/ksymtab_gpl binary sections + system calls.
> 
> I've applied this approach on the recent releases of the Linux kernel
> (2.6.36-4.4.5) as an example and prepared the compatibility table
> here: http://abi-laboratory.pro/tracker/timeline/linux/
> 
> The distribution specific changes in the kernel can be verified in
> the same way to prevent/minimize ABI differences with upstream or
> between sequential releases.

The kernel module ABI depends on configuration, thus there is no single
'upstream ABI' to compare with.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average.

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