Files
linux/tools/include/uapi
Linus Torvalds d9104cec3e Merge tag 'bpf-next-6.17' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf-next
Pull bpf updates from Alexei Starovoitov:

 - Remove usermode driver (UMD) framework (Thomas Weißschuh)

 - Introduce Strongly Connected Component (SCC) in the verifier to
   detect loops and refine register liveness (Eduard Zingerman)

 - Allow 'void *' cast using bpf_rdonly_cast() and corresponding
   '__arg_untrusted' for global function parameters (Eduard Zingerman)

 - Improve precision for BPF_ADD and BPF_SUB operations in the verifier
   (Harishankar Vishwanathan)

 - Teach the verifier that constant pointer to a map cannot be NULL
   (Ihor Solodrai)

 - Introduce BPF streams for error reporting of various conditions
   detected by BPF runtime (Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi)

 - Teach the verifier to insert runtime speculation barrier (lfence on
   x86) to mitigate speculative execution instead of rejecting the
   programs (Luis Gerhorst)

 - Various improvements for 'veristat' (Mykyta Yatsenko)

 - For CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL config warn on internal verifier errors to
   improve bug detection by syzbot (Paul Chaignon)

 - Support BPF private stack on arm64 (Puranjay Mohan)

 - Introduce bpf_cgroup_read_xattr() kfunc to read xattr of cgroup's
   node (Song Liu)

 - Introduce kfuncs for read-only string opreations (Viktor Malik)

 - Implement show_fdinfo() for bpf_links (Tao Chen)

 - Reduce verifier's stack consumption (Yonghong Song)

 - Implement mprog API for cgroup-bpf programs (Yonghong Song)

* tag 'bpf-next-6.17' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf-next: (192 commits)
  selftests/bpf: Migrate fexit_noreturns case into tracing_failure test suite
  selftests/bpf: Add selftest for attaching tracing programs to functions in deny list
  bpf: Add log for attaching tracing programs to functions in deny list
  bpf: Show precise rejected function when attaching fexit/fmod_ret to __noreturn functions
  bpf: Fix various typos in verifier.c comments
  bpf: Add third round of bounds deduction
  selftests/bpf: Test invariants on JSLT crossing sign
  selftests/bpf: Test cross-sign 64bits range refinement
  selftests/bpf: Update reg_bound range refinement logic
  bpf: Improve bounds when s64 crosses sign boundary
  bpf: Simplify bounds refinement from s32
  selftests/bpf: Enable private stack tests for arm64
  bpf, arm64: JIT support for private stack
  bpf: Move bpf_jit_get_prog_name() to core.c
  bpf, arm64: Fix fp initialization for exception boundary
  umd: Remove usermode driver framework
  bpf/preload: Don't select USERMODE_DRIVER
  selftests/bpf: Fix test dynptr/test_dynptr_memset_xdp_chunks failure
  selftests/bpf: Fix test dynptr/test_dynptr_copy_xdp failure
  selftests/bpf: Increase xdp data size for arm64 64K page size
  ...
2025-07-30 09:58:50 -07:00
..

Why we want a copy of kernel headers in tools?
==============================================

There used to be no copies, with tools/ code using kernel headers
directly. From time to time tools/perf/ broke due to legitimate kernel
hacking. At some point Linus complained about such direct usage. Then we
adopted the current model.

The way these headers are used in perf are not restricted to just
including them to compile something.

There are sometimes used in scripts that convert defines into string
tables, etc, so some change may break one of these scripts, or new MSRs
may use some different #define pattern, etc.

E.g.:

  $ ls -1 tools/perf/trace/beauty/*.sh | head -5
  tools/perf/trace/beauty/arch_errno_names.sh
  tools/perf/trace/beauty/drm_ioctl.sh
  tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh
  tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsconfig.sh
  tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsmount.sh
  $
  $ tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh
  static const char *fadvise_advices[] = {
        [0] = "NORMAL",
        [1] = "RANDOM",
        [2] = "SEQUENTIAL",
        [3] = "WILLNEED",
        [4] = "DONTNEED",
        [5] = "NOREUSE",
  };
  $

The tools/perf/check-headers.sh script, part of the tools/ build
process, points out changes in the original files.

So its important not to touch the copies in tools/ when doing changes in
the original kernel headers, that will be done later, when
check-headers.sh inform about the change to the perf tools hackers.

Another explanation from Ingo Molnar:
It's better than all the alternatives we tried so far:

 - Symbolic links and direct #includes: this was the original approach but
   was pushed back on from the kernel side, when tooling modified the
   headers and broke them accidentally for kernel builds.

 - Duplicate self-defined ABI headers like glibc: double the maintenance
   burden, double the chance for mistakes, plus there's no tech-driven
   notification mechanism to look at new kernel side changes.

What we are doing now is a third option:

 - A software-enforced copy-on-write mechanism of kernel headers to
   tooling, driven by non-fatal warnings on the tooling side build when
   kernel headers get modified:

    Warning: Kernel ABI header differences:
      diff -u tools/include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h
      diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/fs.h include/uapi/linux/fs.h
      diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/kvm.h include/uapi/linux/kvm.h
      ...

   The tooling policy is to always pick up the kernel side headers as-is,
   and integate them into the tooling build. The warnings above serve as a
   notification to tooling maintainers that there's changes on the kernel
   side.

We've been using this for many years now, and it might seem hacky, but
works surprisingly well.