[OE-core] [PATCH v6] binutils : enable x86_64-pep for producing EFI binaries on x86-64

[Christopher Clark]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 4:29 AM, Burton, Ross <ross.burton at intel.com> wrote:

> On 30 July 2018 at 08:55, Christopher Clark
> <christopher.w.clark at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Add x86_64-pep emulation support to the set enabled for x86_64 targets
> > to enable the linker to produce Portable Executables for EFI binaries.
> >
> > Enables building the x86-64 EFI variant of the Xen hypervisor for
> > the OpenXT Project.
> >
>

> Is just passing --enable-targets=all not an option?

It is a possible option, but I prefer not to. Here's why:

This binutils software, and definitely the cross variant that is built, is
one that a lot of trust ends up being placed in. It runs on the build
servers (typically a privileged environment, eg. on the internal intranet,
with access to proprietary source code, sometimes signature keys, shared
network storage, etc.) and processes a _lot_ of input data (source code)
obtained from third parties.

In addition to that, it then produces the binaries that are run on the
target systems.

Since it is difficult to fully audit every version of all of the input,
always, it does make sense to take additional care with the tools that
process it.

I think it's reasonable, and advisable, to want the default to be to
minimize the build for this component, and narrow its functionality to that
required to produce executables for the target architecture that the build
is for.

Christopher
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