Users of GNU ld (BFD) from binutils 2.39+ will observe multiple
instances of a new warning when linking kernels in the form:
ld: warning: arch/x86/boot/pmjump.o: missing .note.GNU-stack section implies executable stack
ld: NOTE: This behaviour is deprecated and will be removed in a future version of the linker
ld: warning: arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux has a LOAD segment with RWX permissions
Generally, we would like to avoid the stack being executable. Because
there could be a need for the stack to be executable, assembler sources
have to opt-in to this security feature via explicit creation of the
.note.GNU-stack feature (which compilers create by default) or command
line flag --noexecstack. Or we can simply tell the linker the
production of such sections is irrelevant and to link the stack as
--noexecstack.
LLVM's LLD linker defaults to -z noexecstack, so this flag isn't
strictly necessary when linking with LLD, only BFD, but it doesn't hurt
to be explicit here for all linkers IMO. --no-warn-rwx-segments is
currently BFD specific and only available in the current latest release,
so it's wrapped in an ld-option check.
While the kernel makes extensive usage of ELF sections, it doesn't use
permissions from ELF segments.
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-block/3af4127a-f453-4cf7-f133-a181cce06f73@kernel.dk/
Link: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=binutils-gdb.git;a=commit;h=ba951afb99912da01a6e8434126b8fac7aa75107
Link: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/57009
Reported-and-tested-by: Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>
Suggested-by: Fangrui Song <maskray@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>