Subject: Kernel build fail with "Circular xxxx <- xxxx dependency dropped"

From: Mike Qiu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 14:02:17 +0800

Hi all,

I recently build linux next kernel in IBM Power7 platform, use default 
config file copy from /boot/config-3.6.10-4.fc18.ppc64p7

[root@cena01 linux-next]# uname -a
Linux cena01.austin.ibm.com 3.15.0-rc1+ #47 SMP Thu Apr 24 20:59:46 CDT 
2014 ppc64 ppc64 ppc64 GNU/Linux

[root@cena01 linux-next]# cat /etc/issue
Fedora release 18 (Spherical Cow)
Kernel \r on an \m (\l)

and build error log below:

[root@cena01 linux-next]# make -j60
   CHK     include/config/kernel.release
   CHK     include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h
   CHK     include/generated/utsrelease.h
   CALL    scripts/checksyscalls.sh
   CHK     include/generated/compile.h
   CALL    arch/powerpc/kernel/systbl_chk.sh
   CALL    arch/powerpc/kernel/prom_init_check.sh
   CHK     include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h
   CALL    arch/powerpc/relocs_check.pl
   Building modules, stage 2.
WARNING: 1 bad relocations
c000000001455040 R_PPC64_ADDR64    uprobes_fetch_type_table
make[1]: Circular arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.lds.S <- 
arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.lds dependency dropped.
make[1]: Circular arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.coff.lds.S <- 
arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.lds dependency dropped.
make[1]: Circular arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.coff.lds.S <- 
arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.coff.lds dependency dropped.
make[1]: Circular arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.ps3.lds.S <- 
arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.lds dependency dropped.
make[1]: Circular arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.ps3.lds.S <- 
arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.coff.lds dependency dropped.
make[1]: Circular arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.ps3.lds.S <- 
arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.ps3.lds dependency dropped.
   WRAP    arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.ps3.lds.S
INFO: Uncompressed kernel (size 0x14d0db8) overlaps the address of the 
wrapper(0x400000)
INFO: Fixing the link_address of wrapper to (0x1500000)
ld: cannot open linker script file arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.lds: No such 
file or directory
make[1]: *** [arch/powerpc/boot/zImage.ps3.lds.S] Error 1
make: *** [zImage] Error 2
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
   MODPOST 1853 modules

I use git bisect to find out the possible commits to lead this problem:
7e1c04779efd51154baf652e653ceb24ce68939b kbuild: Use relative path for 
$(objtree)
890676c65d699db3ad82e7dddd0cf8fb449031af kbuild: Use relative path when 
building in the source tree
9da0763bdd82572be243fcf5161734f11568960f kbuild: Use relative path when 
building in a subdir of the source tree

Thanks
Mike