[PATCH v5 14/16] modules: Support extended MODVERSIONS info

[Matthew Maurer]

On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 3:22 PM Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof at kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 11:38:29PM +0000, Matthew Maurer wrote:
> > Adds a new format for MODVERSIONS which stores each field in a separate
> > ELF section. This initially adds support for variable length names, but
> > could later be used to add additional fields to MODVERSIONS in a
> > backwards compatible way if needed. Any new fields will be ignored by
> > old user tooling, unlike the current format where user tooling cannot
> > tolerate adjustments to the format (for example making the name field
> > longer).
> >
> > Since PPC munges its version records to strip leading dots, we reproduce
> > the munging for the new format. Other architectures do not appear to
> > have architecture-specific usage of this information.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Matthew Maurer <mmaurer at google.com>
>
> I'm all for the ELF validation work so far, all that was nice, thanks
> for all that tidying up. This however is not considering when we really
> need all this at all, and not making it specific to the build times when
> such things are needed. That is, yes I'd like to see the need for this
> clearly explicitly defined through Kconfig, a *select FOO_FEATURE* for
> when this is needed. No need to extend a module with bloat if we don't
> need it, likewise if a kernel was built without needing those things,
> why bloat the modules with the extra information?

To make sure I understand what you're asking for, are you suggesting:
1. A config flag for supporting parsing the extended format
2. A config flag for supporting parsing the existing format
3. A config flag for putting the extended format into produced modules
4. A config flag for putting the existing format into produced modules
or some combination of the above?

I'm currently reading this as #3, but figured I'd ask to be certain.

>
>   Luis