freebsd stable - Mar 2021 - WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS - *.ko now with debug_info

Hi,

since upgrading to stable/13 I was wondering why /boot/kernel is much
larger. When using "WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS=" in /etc/src.conf the
kernel modules now contain debug_info. OK? (I manually run "objcopy
--strip-debug".)

FreeBSD 13.0-STABLE #60 stable/13-n245000-12349e667ced:

$ cat /etc/src.conf
WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS
$ file
/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC/modules/usr/src/sys/modules/aac/aac.ko
/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC/modules/usr/src/sys/modules/aac/aac.ko:
ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable, x86-64, version 1 (FreeBSD), BuildID[sha1]=217dd8a5d
dff9c74324fda4986f6234afc128ef8, with debug_info, not stripped
                                 
FreeBSD 12.2-STABLE r369477 GENERIC:

$ cat /etc/src.conf
WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS
$ file
/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC/modules/usr/src/sys/modules/aac/aac.ko
/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC/modules/usr/src/sys/modules/aac/aac.ko:
ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable, x86-64, version 1 (FreeBSD), BuildID[sha1]=a94317d70
5ca9a63a2a8956368cd1d2a6dd92ce1, not stripped

--
Herbert

On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 11:11:08PM +0100, Herbert J. Skuhra
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> since upgrading to stable/13 I was wondering why /boot/kernel is much
> larger. When using "WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS=" in /etc/src.conf the
> kernel modules now contain debug_info. OK? (I manually run "objcopy
> --strip-debug".)
I found the following commit:

commit 9b6edf364eb05aca4709732136e92a6ab739bb36
Author: Conrad Meyer
Date:   Tue Jun 23 18:25:31 2020 +0000

If this change is correct maybe src.conf(5) should be updated:

WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS
             Set to not install kernel symbol files.  This option is
             recommended for those people who have small root partitions.

-- 
Herbert