Re: [PATCH v2] PowerPC: Initial SFrame support for 64-bit PowerPC ELF ABI

Project / Subsystem

binutils / powerpc

Date

2026-04-29

Proposer

Abhay Kandpal <abhay@linux.ibm.com>

Source type

public_inbox

Consensus

Proposed

Sentiment

/10

Technical tradeoffs

  • Adds complexity to the kernel.
  • Requires changes to the PowerPC64 ABI.
  • May introduce a performance overhead (though diharapkan kecil).

All attributes

project
binutils
subsystem
powerpc
patch_id
discussion_id
b6139ccf-74ea-4ce6-b782-686a1ccee8d9@linux.ibm.com
source_type
public_inbox
title
Re: [PATCH v2] PowerPC: Initial SFrame support for 64-bit PowerPC ELF ABI
headline
PowerPC: Initial SFrame support for 64-bit PowerPC ELF ABI
tldr
The patch adds SFrame support for PowerPC64 to resolve issues with stale link registers and epilogue races during profiling.
proposer
Abhay Kandpal <abhay@linux.ibm.com>
consensus
Proposed
outcome
proposed
sentiment_score
technical_tradeoffs
  • Adds complexity to the kernel.
  • Requires changes to the PowerPC64 ABI.
  • May introduce a performance overhead (though diharapkan kecil).
series_id
series_role
standalone
series_parts
[]
tags
  • powerpc
  • sframe
  • stack unwinding
  • profiling
  • perf
bugzilla_url
date
2026-04-29T00:00:00.000Z

Re: [PATCH v2] PowerPC: Initial SFrame support for 64-bit PowerPC ELF ABI

Abhay Kandpal clarifies the necessity of SFrame (stack frame) support for PowerPC64, addressing issues with stale link registers at NMI boundaries and epilogue races that lead to missing caller information during profiling. These problems cannot be reliably solved in userspace, requiring kernel-side unwinding with reliable frame data provided by SFrame. The patch has been tested on both ppc64le and ppc64 BE.