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From: Kees Cook <kees@outflux•net>
To: Andi Kleen <ak@linux•intel.com>
Cc: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead•org>,
	akpm@linux-foundation•org, linux-kernel@vger•kernel.org,
	linux-next@vger•kernel.org, sfr@canb•auug.org.au, mhocko@suse•cz
Subject: Re: mmotm 2014-07-02-15-07 uploaded (stack protector)
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 18:13:05 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20140703011305.GK5412@outflux.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20140703010019.GS19781@tassilo.jf.intel.com>

On Wed, Jul 02, 2014 at 06:00:19PM -0700, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > The problem is that if you make kbuild hard-fail when selecting this missing
> > compiler option, you can never switch it back because "make menuconfig" will
> > refuse to build since the compiler option would be missing. Being silent
> > about the missing option (and/or falling back to other options) means that
> > you could get two different kernel features selection with the same CONFIG_*
> > set, depending on the kernel, which is extremely bad ("I selected
> > stack-protector-strong but it built without it?!").
> 
> The assumption that every flag in a .config has been consciouscly 
> selected by a human is a quite dubious one ...

Sure; it was actually via automated config updates that I uncovered this
limitation of kbuild in the first place.

> LTO just turns itself off if the toolchain doesn't support it.

For this situation, it is more surprising to have this option fall back,
since it is a security feature selection. The build must fail in some way if
compiler doesn't match CONFIG.

> > So, the middle ground was to warn about it during the kbuild logic so
> > you could find the source of the problem, but ultimately fail the build
> > when the compiler doesn't support it so there weren't any silent failure
> > modes.
> 
> Longer term it would be of course best to move all the cc-options
> probing into Kconfig. I bet that would speed up builds too.

Absolutely. I presently lack the deep knowledge to figure this out. :)

-Kees

-- 
Kees Cook                                            @outflux.net

  reply	other threads:[~2014-07-03  1:13 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-07-02 22:08 mmotm 2014-07-02-15-07 uploaded akpm
2014-07-02 23:21 ` mmotm 2014-07-02-15-07 uploaded (stack protector) Randy Dunlap
2014-07-03  0:22   ` Andi Kleen
2014-07-03  0:37     ` Randy Dunlap
2014-07-03  0:51     ` Kees Cook
2014-07-03  0:56       ` Andrew Morton
2014-07-03  1:10         ` [PATCH] kbuild: explain stack-protector-strong CONFIG logic Kees Cook
2014-07-03  1:00       ` mmotm 2014-07-02-15-07 uploaded (stack protector) Andi Kleen
2014-07-03  1:13         ` Kees Cook [this message]
2014-07-03  0:57   ` Kees Cook
2014-07-03  1:42     ` Randy Dunlap

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