Re: [PATCH 2/2] xen: update CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO help text

[Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

On 07.03.2023 15:04, Juergen Gross wrote:
> On 07.03.23 11:41, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> On 07.03.2023 07:32, Juergen Gross wrote:
>>> --- a/xen/Kconfig.debug
>>> +++ b/xen/Kconfig.debug
>>> @@ -15,8 +15,11 @@ config DEBUG_INFO
>>>     bool "Compile Xen with debug info"
>>>     default DEBUG
>>>     ---help---
>>> -     If you say Y here the resulting Xen will include debugging info
>>> -     resulting in a larger binary image.
>>> +     Say Y here if you want to build Xen with debug information. This
>>> +     information is needed e.g. for doing crash dump analysis of the
>>> +     hypervisor via the "crash" tool.
>>> +     Saying Y will increase the size of xen-syms and the built EFI
>>> +     binary.
>>
>> Largely fine with me, just one question: Why do you mention xen-syms by
>> name, but then verbally describe xen.efi? And since, unlike for xen-syms,
> 
> For xen-syms I couldn't find an easily understandable wording. I'd be fine
> with just saying "xen.efi".
> 
>> this affects the installed binary actually used for booting (which may
>> be placed on a space constrained partition), it may be prudent to
>> mention INSTALL_EFI_STRIP here (as a way to reduce the binary size of
>> what ends up on the EFI partition, even if that wouldn't affect the
>> "normal" way of putting the binary on the EFI partition - people would
>> still need to take care of that in their distros).
> 
> What about adding a related Kconfig option instead?

How would a Kconfig option possibly affect this? You want debug info
in the xen.efi in its standard install location (outside of the EFI
partition); or else if you don't want it there why would you want it
in xen-syms? It is the step of populating the EFI partition from the
standard install location where some equivalent of INSTALL_EFI_STRIP
would come into play. That step is done outside of Xen's build
system and hence outside of any Kconfig control.

Jan

> I'd be fine with a textual mentioning of INSTALL_EFI_STRIP, too.
> 
>> I guess this size aspect wrt the EFI partition is actually something
>> that should also be mentioned in patch 1, because this can be an argument
>> against exposure of the option (precisely because it requires extra
>> activity to prevent the EFI partition running out of space).
> 
> This might be another reason to make it easily configurable.
> 
> 
> Juergen