Files
linux/tools/include/uapi
Linus Torvalds cd051cfe1e Merge tag 'vfs-7.3-rc1.failfs' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs
Pull failfs filesystem from Christian Brauner:
 "Add failfs and expose a FD_FAILFS_ROOT sentinel.

  This allows userspace to shed their filesystem state completely. A
  process with its root or working directory in failfs must anchor every
  path lookup at an explicit file descriptor. Absolute paths, absolute
  symlinks and AT_FDCWD-relative lookups simply fail.

  Failfs is the counterpart to nullfs. nullfs says adds a permanently
  empty, immutable directory whose lookups fail with ENOENT but which
  can be opened, read, stat'd and mounted upon. Failfs on the other hand
  fails every operation. The root cannot be opened at all. A single
  instance is mounted during early boot via kern_mount(), which makes it
  logically distinct from every mount namespace.

  This is accompanied by a new fchroot() system call which makes
  chrooting via a file descriptor a first class concept. It's possible
  to chroot into failfs as an unprivileged user provided the task has no
  new privileges set"

* tag 'vfs-7.3-rc1.failfs' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/vfs/vfs:
  Documentation: add failfs documentation
  selftests/filesystems: add failfs selftests
  arch: hookup fchroot() system call
  fs: support FD_FAILFS_ROOT in fchroot()
  fs: add fchroot()
  fs: support FD_FAILFS_ROOT in fchdir()
  fs: add failfs
2026-08-17 09:15:52 -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.