RHEL/CentOS 7 shipped with 5.1.2alpha, including the threaded
encoder that is behind #ifdef LZMA_UNSTABLE in the API headers.
In 5.1.2alpha these symbols are under XZ_5.1.2alpha in liblzma.map.
API/ABI compatibility tracking isn't done between development
releases so newer releases didn't have XZ_5.1.2alpha anymore.
Later RHEL/CentOS 7 updated xz to 5.2.2 but they wanted to keep
the exported symbols compatible with 5.1.2alpha. After checking
the ABI changes it turned out that >= 5.2.0 ABI is backward
compatible with the threaded encoder functions from 5.1.2alpha
(but not vice versa as fixes and extensions to these functions
were made between 5.1.2alpha and 5.2.0).
In RHEL/CentOS 7, XZ Utils 5.2.2 was patched with
xz-5.2.2-compat-libs.patch to modify liblzma.map:
- XZ_5.1.2alpha was added with lzma_stream_encoder_mt and
lzma_stream_encoder_mt_memusage. This matched XZ Utils 5.1.2alpha.
- XZ_5.2 was replaced with XZ_5.2.2. It is clear that this was
an error; the intention was to keep using XZ_5.2 (XZ_5.2.2
has never been used in XZ Utils). So XZ_5.2.2 lists all
symbols that were listed under XZ_5.2 before the patch.
lzma_stream_encoder_mt and _mt_memusage are included too so
they are listed both here and under XZ_5.1.2alpha.
The patch didn't add any __asm__(".symver ...") lines to the .c
files. Thus the resulting liblzma.so exports the threaded encoder
functions under XZ_5.1.2alpha only. Listing the two functions
also under XZ_5.2.2 in liblzma.map has no effect without
matching .symver lines.
The lack of XZ_5.2 in RHEL/CentOS 7 means that binaries linked
against unpatched XZ Utils 5.2.x won't run on RHEL/CentOS 7.
This is unfortunate but this alone isn't too bad as the problem
is contained within RHEL/CentOS 7 and doesn't affect users
of other distributions. It could also be fixed internally in
RHEL/CentOS 7.
The second problem is more serious: In XZ Utils 5.2.2 the API
headers don't have #ifdef LZMA_UNSTABLE for obvious reasons.
This is true in RHEL/CentOS 7 version too. Thus now programs
using new APIs can be compiled without an extra #define. However,
the programs end up depending on symbol version XZ_5.1.2alpha
(and possibly also XZ_5.2.2) instead of XZ_5.2 as they would
with an unpatched XZ Utils 5.2.2. This means that such binaries
won't run on other distributions shipping XZ Utils >= 5.2.0 as
they don't provide XZ_5.1.2alpha or XZ_5.2.2; they only provide
XZ_5.2 (and XZ_5.0). (This includes RHEL/CentOS 8 as the patch
luckily isn't included there anymore with XZ Utils 5.2.4.)
Binaries built by RHEL/CentOS 7 users get distributed and then
people wonder why they don't run on some other distribution.
Seems that people have found out about the patch and been copying
it to some build scripts, seemingly curing the symptoms but
actually spreading the illness further and outside RHEL/CentOS 7.
The ill patch seems to be from late 2016 (RHEL 7.3) and in 2017 it
had spread at least to EasyBuild. I heard about the events only
recently. :-(
This commit splits liblzma.map into two versions: one for
GNU/Linux and another for other OSes that can use symbol versioning
(FreeBSD, Solaris, maybe others). The Linux-specific file and the
matching additions to .c files add full compatibility with binaries
that have been built against a RHEL/CentOS-patched liblzma. Builds
for OSes other than GNU/Linux won't get the vaccine as they should
be immune to the problem (I really hope that no build script uses
the RHEL/CentOS 7 patch outside GNU/Linux).
The RHEL/CentOS compatibility symbols XZ_5.1.2alpha and XZ_5.2.2
are intentionally put *after* XZ_5.2 in liblzma_linux.map. This way
if one forgets to #define HAVE_SYMBOL_VERSIONS_LINUX when building,
the resulting liblzma.so.5 will have lzma_stream_encoder_mt@@XZ_5.2
since XZ_5.2 {...} is the first one that lists that function.
Without HAVE_SYMBOL_VERSIONS_LINUX @XZ_5.1.2alpha and @XZ_5.2.2
will be missing but that's still a minor problem compared to
only having lzma_stream_encoder_mt@@XZ_5.1.2alpha!
The "local: *;" line was moved to XZ_5.0 so that it doesn't need
to be moved around. It doesn't matter where it is put.
Having two similar liblzma_*.map files is a bit silly as it is,
at least for now, easily possible to generate the generic one
from the Linux-specific file. But that adds extra steps and
increases the risk of mistakes when supporting more than one
build system. So I rather maintain two files in parallel and let
validate_map.sh check that they are in sync when "make mydist"
is run.
This adds .symver lines for lzma_stream_encoder_mt@XZ_5.2.2 and
lzma_stream_encoder_mt_memusage@XZ_5.2.2 even though these
weren't exported by RHEL/CentOS 7 (only @@XZ_5.1.2alpha was
for these two). I added these anyway because someone might
misunderstand the RHEL/CentOS 7 patch and think that @XZ_5.2.2
(@@XZ_5.2.2) versions were exported too.
At glance one could suggest using __typeof__ to copy the function
prototypes when making aliases. However, this doesn't work trivially
because __typeof__ won't copy attributes (lzma_nothrow, lzma_pure)
and it won't change symbol visibility from hidden to default (done
by LZMA_API()). Attributes could be copied with __copy__ attribute
but that needs GCC 9 and a fallback method would be needed anyway.
This uses __symver__ attribute with GCC >= 10 and
__asm__(".symver ...") with everything else. The attribute method
is required for LTO (-flto) support with GCC. Using -flto with
GCC older than 10 is now broken on GNU/Linux and will not be fixed
(can silently result in a broken liblzma build that has dangerously
incorrect symbol versions). LTO builds with Clang seem to work
with the traditional __asm__(".symver ...") method.
Thanks to Boud Roukema for reporting the problem and discussing
the details and testing the fix.
Symbol versioning is enabled by default on GNU/Linux,
other GNU-based systems, and FreeBSD.
I'm not sure how stable this is, so it may need
backward-incompatible changes before the next release.
The idea is that alpha and beta symbols are considered
unstable and require recompiling the applications that
use those symbols. Once a symbol is stable, it may get
extended with new features in ways that don't break
compatibility with older ABI & API.
The mydist target runs validate_map.sh which should
catch some probable problems in liblzma.map. Otherwise
I would forget to update the map file for new releases.
Lasse Collin