Re: Binutils + OpenSSL issue

["H. J. Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>]

Alan,

I was told your patches

http://sources.redhat.com/ml/binutils/2003-02/msg00026.html
http://sources.redhat.com/ml/binutils/2003-02/msg00027.html

brake Linux/mips. Kumba, can you verify exactly which patch caused
the problem?


H.J.
On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 05:16:59AM -0400, Kumba wrote:
> 
> 	Greetings,
> 
> 	Been trying to chase down a pretty obscure Binutils bug  on the 
> linux/mips platform, thought you might be interested about it.  To 
> summarize, building OpenSSL on Linux/MIPS with any binutils after around 
> Feb 6th, 2003 seems to start "breaking" the library, specifically 
> libcrypto and libssl.
> 
> 	Running the command:
> 
> objdump -R /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.6 |grep R_MIPS |grep -v 
> \(R_MIPS_32\|R_MIPS_NONE\)
> 
> 	Will produce error messages similar to the following:
> 
> BFD: BFD 2.13.90.0.18 20030121 assertion fail elf32-mips.c:1498
> BFD: usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.6(.rel.dyn): relocation 3755 has invalid 
> symbol index 0
> 
> 	Only replicated many times.  With regards to Gentoo linux, we've seen 
> this behavior since patching a 2.13.90.0.18 binutils with a CVS patch 
> from Fed 6th, 2003.  It's been confirmed in every binutils version there 
> after, even in 2.14.90.0.2.
> 
> 	To actually trigger it, OpenSSL needs to be compiled using -mips3 or 
> higher optimizations (assuming gcc 3.2.x, haven't tested with gcc-3.3 
> yet).  That's when these failed assertions actually start causing 
> problems.  They are still produced in libcrypto and libssl even with the 
> default -mips1 optimizations, just they don't seem to get in the way of 
> things until -mips3 or -mips4.
> 
> 	I've consulted with Thiemo Seufer on this matter, and he's got it 
> pinned down to the patch attached in bzip2 format to this mail.  He 
> thinks the offending code is within it, and it relates to the GOT Table 
> not being initialized under certain circumstances.  I'm not sure if he's 
> working on some fix for it, he seems a busy enough person as is.
> 
> 	If you need any additional information, let me know.  Several gentoo 
> users have built entire systems optimized to -mips4 on Indy machines 
> only to discover OpenSSL becomes non-functional, rendering programs like 
> SSH non-functional as well.  That's when this glitch was first noticed.
> 
> --Kumba