ksymtypes − a tool to work with Linux−kernel symtypes files
ksymtypes [GENERAL−OPTION...] {consolidate | compare } [COMMAND−OPTION...]
ksymtypes is a tool that provides functionality to work with symtypes files. These files describe the Application Binary Interface (ABI) of the kernel and its modules. The data is produced by genksyms utilities from the kernel tree.
The tool primarily operates with sets of symtypes files as they are produced during a single build of the Linux kernel. Each such set describes the ABI of a specific kernel and its modules. The tool refers to this set as a "symtypes corpus".
The provided functionality is split into several integrated commands. The currently available commands are consolidate and compare. The consolidate command takes a symtypes corpus composed of a set of symtypes files and produces its consolidated variant by merging duplicated types. The compare command shows differences between two symtypes corpuses.
−d, −−debug
Enable debug output.
−h, −−help
Display global help information and exit.
−−version
Output version information and exit.
ksymtypes consolidate [CONSOLIDATE−OPTION...] PATH
The consolidate command reads symtypes files from the path specified on the command line, consolidates their contents by merging duplicate types and writes the output to the specified file. The input path should point to a directory that the command recursively searches for all symtypes files. In a typical use case, this will be a build directory of the Linux kernel.
Available
options:
−h, −−help
Display help information for the command and exit.
−j NUM, −−jobs=NUM
Use NUM workers to perform the operation simultaneously.
−o FILE, −−output=FILE
Write the result in FILE, instead of the standard output.
ksymtypes compare [COMPARE−OPTION...] PATH PATH2
The compare command shows differences between two symtypes corpuses. A corpus can be specified by a directory containing symtypes files or by a consolidated symtypes file. In a typical use case, the first input will point to a reference consolidated symtypes corpus and the second input will point to data from a new build of the Linux kernel.
Available
options:
−h, −−help
Display help information for the command and exit.
−j NUM, −−jobs=NUM
Use NUM workers to perform the operation simultaneously.
Build the Linux kernel and create a reference consolidated symtypes corpus:
$ cd
<linux−kernel−directory>
$ make O=build ...
$ ksymtypes consolidate −−output=reference.kabi
build/
Build a new version of the Linux kernel and compare its ABI with the previous reference:
$ cd
<linux−kernel−directory> && git
pull
$ make O=build ...
$ ksymtypes compare reference.kabi build/
ksymtypes(5)