[Buildroot] out-of-tree kernel modules and linux header versions

Thu Nov 13 19:48:13 UTC 2014

On 13/11/14 02:53, Bryce Schober wrote:
> I modified the subject to break this discussion out of its previous thread.
> Hopefully that's not too distasteful on this list...
> 
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Thomas Petazzoni
> <thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com
> <mailto:thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com>> wrote:
> 
>     A kernel module is never built using the linux headers provided by the
>     toolchain. The linux headers provided by the toolchain only contain the
>     userspace part of the kernel headers, and they are therefore
>     insufficient to build kernel modules (which as their name suggest,
>     contain kernel code).
> 
>     Therefore, when you do something like:
> 
>     > > > define KERNELMODULE_BUILD_CMDS
>     > > >    $(MAKE) $(LINUX_MAKE_FLAGS) -C $(LINUX_DIR) M=$(@D) modules
>     > > > endef
> 
>     It uses the kernel code in $(LINUX_DIR), and mainly the kernel headers
>     + kernel configuration, to build your kernel modules.
> 
> 
> Has this always been the case? I'm on an old buildroot-2011.08 and using an old
> linux 2.6.29.6 kernel, with an external toolchain built with 2.6.27 headers. I'm
> building a vendor's kernel module using exactly the pattern shown in
> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.uclibc.buildroot/99397, and I'm
> getting compile errors directly corresponding to differences in headers between
> the 2.6.27 and 2.6.29.6 versions.
> 
> To be much more verbose, RealTek's wireless driver's include/rtw_mlme.h:
> https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes/blob/master/include/rtw_mlme.h#L265
> ...contains a snippet like this:
> #ifdef CONFIG_IOCTL_CFG80211
> struct cfg80211_wifidirect_info{
>     _timer                    remain_on_ch_timer;
>     u8                        restore_channel;
>     struct ieee80211_channel    remain_on_ch_channel;
>     enum nl80211_channel_type    remain_on_ch_type;
>     u64                        remain_on_ch_cookie;
>     bool is_ro_ch;
> };
> #endif //CONFIG_IOCTL_CFG80211
> 
> Drilling down through it's include structure, you can find that the
> include/osdep_service.h includes <net/cfg80211.h>:
> https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes/blob/master/include/osdep_service.h#L793
> 
> When objects including the rtw_mlme.h get compiled, I get the following error:
> In file included from
> <snip>/buildroot/output/build/rtl8192cu-4.0.5_11249.20140422/include/drv_types.h:79,
>                  from
> <snip>/buildroot/output/build/rtl8192cu-4.0.5_11249.20140422/core/rtw_ioctl_query.c:25:
> <snip>/buildroot/output/build/rtl8192cu-4.0.5_11249.20140422/include/rtw_mlme.h:262:
> error: field 'remain_on_ch_channel' has incomplete type
> 
> This error is complaining about not knowing what "enum nl80211_channel_type"
> means, and that definition was added to linux/include/nl80211.h between 2.6.27
> and 2.6.29:
> http://lxr.free-electrons.com/diff/include/linux/nl80211.h?v=2.6.27;diffvar=v;diffval=2.6.29#L808
> 
> Another hint that the problem is due to getting the wrong header is that the
> generated auto-dependency file lists some headers with an absolute path and
> other with a relative path, including the suspicious nl80211.h header (see
> attached .rtw_mlme.o.d).

 A relative path would be the right thing, because it's relative to the Linux
directory.

 Can you check in your build log that you indeed do something like

make ... -C
/mnt/ssd/svn/gen2-dev-branch3/x86/buildroot/output/build/linux-2.6.29.6
M=/mnt/ssd/svn/gen2-dev-branch3/x86/buildroot/overlay-common-all/build/rtl8192cu-4.0.5_11249.20140422
modules

?

 And that
/mnt/ssd/svn/gen2-dev-branch3/x86/buildroot/output/build/linux-2.6.29.6/include/linux/nl80211.h
does contain the correct enum?

 You can also run the make command with V=1, copy the actual compiler call, run
it from the linux directory, and replace the -c with -E to get the preprocessed
output. There you can see exactly which file is included and what its
preprocessed contents are.

 Regards,
 Arnout

> 
> I admit that the kernel module build in $(LINUX_DIR) should get its relative
> include path also from $(LINUX_DIR), but all these coincidences make me strongly
> suspicious that it's getting them from the 2.6.27 headers in buildroot's sysroot
> instead. The verbose make output for rtw_mlme.o doesn't show any suspicious
> include paths, but it doesn't show *anything* for the
> buildroot/output/staging/usr/include, since that's coming from the toolchain
> wrapper, right?
> 
> I see that there have been quite a few changes to the external toolchain wrapper
> since 2011.08, so maybe I'll see if I can back-port it to my old buildroot...
> 
> <><  <><  <><
> Bryce Schober
> 
> 
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-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
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