[ruby-core:116062] [Ruby master Bug#20154] aarch64: configure overrides `-mbranch-protection` if it was set in CFLAGS via environment

Issue #20154 has been updated by katei (Yuta Saito).


Right, the `configure.ac` should respect user given CFLAGS as much as possible.
I will make follow-up fixes to avoid overriding the option, but I don't think we can get it merged in 3.3.x branch since the overriding issue is not an obvious regression. (3.2.x also has the same problem, IIUC)

Anyway, your patch in the downstream seems reasonable to me as a temporal fix.

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Bug #20154: aarch64: configure overrides `-mbranch-protection` if it was set in CFLAGS via environment
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20154#change-106061

* Author: jprokop (Jarek Prokop)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
* ruby -v: ruby 3.3.0 (2023-12-25 revision 5124f9ac75) [aarch64-linux]
* Backport: 3.0: UNKNOWN, 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN
----------------------------------------
Recently a GH PR was merged <https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/9306> For PAC/BTI support on ARM CPUs for Coroutine.S.

Without proper compilation support in configure.ac it segfaults Ruby with fibers on CPUs where PAC is supported: https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20085

At the time of writing, configure.ac appends the first option from a list for flag `-mbranch-protection` that successfully compiles a program <https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/master/configure.ac#L829>,
to XCFLAGS and now also ASFLAGS to fix issue 20085 for Ruby master.

This is suboptimal for Fedora as we set -mbranch-protection=standard by default in C{,XX}FLAGS:
```
CFLAGS='-O2 -flto=auto -ffat-lto-objects -fexceptions -g -grecord-gcc-switches -pipe -Wall -Werror=format-security -Werror=implicit-function-declaration -Werror=implicit-int -Wp,-U_FORTIFY_SOURCE,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3 -Wp,-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -fstack-protector-strong -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-annobin-cc1  -mbranch-protection=standard -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -fstack-clash-protection -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer '
export CFLAGS
CXXFLAGS='-O2 -flto=auto -ffat-lto-objects -fexceptions -g -grecord-gcc-switches -pipe -Wall -Werror=format-security -Wp,-U_FORTIFY_SOURCE,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3 -Wp,-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -fstack-protector-strong -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-annobin-cc1  -mbranch-protection=standard -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -fstack-clash-protection -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer'
export CXXFLAGS
```

And the appended flag overrides distribution's compilation configuration, which in this case ends up omitting BTI instructions and only using PAC.

Would it make sense to check if such flags exist and not overwrite them if they do?

Serious proposals:
1. Simplest fix that does not overwrite what is set in the distribution and results in higher security is simply prepending the list of options with `-mbranch-protection=standard`, it should cause no problems on ARMv8 CPUs and forward, BTI similarly to PAC instructions result into NOP, it is only extending the capability.

See attached 0001-aarch64-Check-mbranch-protection-standard-first-to-u.patch


2. Other fix that sounds more sane IMO and dodges this kind of guessing where are all the correct places for the flag is what another Fedora contributor Florian Weimer suggested: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/message/CVTNF2OQCL3XZHUUFNYMDK6ZEF2SWUEN/

"The reliable way to do this would be to compile a C file and check
whether that enables __ARM_FEATURE_PAC_DEFAULT, and if that's the case,
define a *different* macro for use in the assembler implementation.
This way, you don't need to care about the exact name of the option."

IOW instead of using __ARM_FEATURE_* directly in that code, define a macro in the style of "USE_PAC" with value of the feature if it is defined, I think that way we shouldn't need to append ASFLAGS anymore.

However it's also important to catch the value of those macros as their values have meaning, I have an idea how to do that but I'd get on that monday earliest.

---Files--------------------------------
0001-aarch64-Check-mbranch-protection-standard-first-to-u.patch (1004 Bytes)


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