Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel

From	Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.bugs.dist, linux.debian.kernel
Subject	Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel
Date	2020-01-31 17:40 +0100
Message-ID	<zuHuO-2Mj-5@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References	(7 earlier) <zkyM9-AC-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zoQr7-2zK-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zuHbs-2FO-11@gated-at.bofh.it> <zkyM9-AC-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zuHbs-2FO-11@gated-at.bofh.it>
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 4:11 PM Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2020-01-15 at 12:50 +0000, Sudip Mukherjee wrote:
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 15, 2020 at 06:12:05AM +0000, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> > > retitle 948041 libbpf-dev: please build from https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf
> > > reassign 948041 libbpf-dev
> > > merge 942903 948041
> > > quit
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Julia Kartseva wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:51:55 +0100 Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> wrote:
> > > > > Why should we?  If the upstream developers decide to maintain it
> > > > > independently, aka don't use the kernel repo as true source, or better,
> > > > > remove the source from it, then we have something to do.
> > >
> > > I agree --- if upstream development were happening in
> > > https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf then this would be a no-brainer.  It
> > > appears to instead be a mirror of the source that's in the kernel
> > > repo, though.
> >
> > That will be difficult as all of them are dependent on the ftrace hooks
> > that are in the kernel.
> >
> > > > Why should we switch from kernel sources to GH is a frequently asked
> > > > question so the reason was explained in libbpf README [1].
> > >
> > > If I'm reading that correctly, the intent appears to be that it would
> > > allow faster libbpf upgrades.
> >
> > Yes, one of my intent. Faster and independent.
>
> This is a potential benefit, but probably only in the run-up to a
> release when we might fix the kernel version early.
>
> [...]
> > > Is there some underlying need that we could address more directly?
> > > I think I'm missing some piece of the motivation here.
> >
> > Going back to the history of why I started this bug report. I was added
> > in a discussion about libtraceevent and Steven (upstream developer of
> > libtraceevent) was asking how can he make changes to the library without
> > releasing a new version and that the distros should not pick up as that
> > will still be premature and not tested enough.
> [...]
>
> However, this ability to release libbpf *less* often also seems
> important, and I think this point has been missed.
>
> I have some concern about whether this might prevent us building
> bpftool in future (if it depends on recent changes in libbpf) but
> that's hypothetical at this point.

Since, bpftool will also be in userspace, so I am guessing that it
will also have the same problem as libbpf and the upstream developers
might again think of moving to github. But whatever is the case I am
sure we can think of something to fix that problem if it arises.

>
> So on balance I support moving libbpf out to a separate source package.

Thanks Ben.

As discussed, I will raise a merge request on the kernel repo to
remove libbpf building bits. And then use this bug to deliver the new
source package.


-- 
Regards
Sudip

Thread

Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-03 18:20 +0100
  Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> - 2020-01-03 19:20 +0100
    Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-03 19:50 +0100
    Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Bastian Blank <bblank@thinkmo.de> - 2020-01-03 21:00 +0100
      Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-03 21:30 +0100
        Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-12 01:40 +0100
          Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> - 2020-01-12 10:10 +0100
  Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> - 2020-01-15 07:20 +0100
    Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-15 14:00 +0100
      Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Bastian Blank <bblank@thinkmo.de> - 2020-01-18 16:50 +0100
        Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Andrii Nakryiko <andrii.nakryiko@gmail.com> - 2020-01-20 07:50 +0100
      Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2020-01-31 17:20 +0100
        Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-31 17:40 +0100
          Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-02-05 22:10 +0100
  Bug#948041: marked as done (libbpf-dev: please build from  https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf) "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2020-04-12 00:10 +0200

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