Files
linux/tools/include/uapi
Linus Torvalds 90b83efa67 Merge tag 'bpf-next-6.16' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf-next
Pull bpf updates from Alexei Starovoitov:

 - Fix and improve BTF deduplication of identical BTF types (Alan
   Maguire and Andrii Nakryiko)

 - Support up to 12 arguments in BPF trampoline on arm64 (Xu Kuohai and
   Alexis Lothoré)

 - Support load-acquire and store-release instructions in BPF JIT on
   riscv64 (Andrea Parri)

 - Fix uninitialized values in BPF_{CORE,PROBE}_READ macros (Anton
   Protopopov)

 - Streamline allowed helpers across program types (Feng Yang)

 - Support atomic update for hashtab of BPF maps (Hou Tao)

 - Implement json output for BPF helpers (Ihor Solodrai)

 - Several s390 JIT fixes (Ilya Leoshkevich)

 - Various sockmap fixes (Jiayuan Chen)

 - Support mmap of vmlinux BTF data (Lorenz Bauer)

 - Support BPF rbtree traversal and list peeking (Martin KaFai Lau)

 - Tests for sockmap/sockhash redirection (Michal Luczaj)

 - Introduce kfuncs for memory reads into dynptrs (Mykyta Yatsenko)

 - Add support for dma-buf iterators in BPF (T.J. Mercier)

 - The verifier support for __bpf_trap() (Yonghong Song)

* tag 'bpf-next-6.16' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf-next: (135 commits)
  bpf, arm64: Remove unused-but-set function and variable.
  selftests/bpf: Add tests with stack ptr register in conditional jmp
  bpf: Do not include stack ptr register in precision backtracking bookkeeping
  selftests/bpf: enable many-args tests for arm64
  bpf, arm64: Support up to 12 function arguments
  bpf: Check rcu_read_lock_trace_held() in bpf_map_lookup_percpu_elem()
  bpf: Avoid __bpf_prog_ret0_warn when jit fails
  bpftool: Add support for custom BTF path in prog load/loadall
  selftests/bpf: Add unit tests with __bpf_trap() kfunc
  bpf: Warn with __bpf_trap() kfunc maybe due to uninitialized variable
  bpf: Remove special_kfunc_set from verifier
  selftests/bpf: Add test for open coded dmabuf_iter
  selftests/bpf: Add test for dmabuf_iter
  bpf: Add open coded dmabuf iterator
  bpf: Add dmabuf iterator
  dma-buf: Rename debugfs symbols
  bpf: Fix error return value in bpf_copy_from_user_dynptr
  libbpf: Use mmap to parse vmlinux BTF from sysfs
  selftests: bpf: Add a test for mmapable vmlinux BTF
  btf: Allow mmap of vmlinux btf
  ...
2025-05-28 15:52:42 -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.