Please package libbpf (which is done out of the kernel src) in Debian [for 19.10]

[Christian Ehrhardt ]

Hi,
Debian packages libbpf and so far does so out of the kernel source [1].
There is some movement to separate that from the kernel source [2] but this isn't ready yet. So far it is just a sync of the subtree out of the kernel sources.

Since we do not share our kernel packaging we will not get this for-free without doing anything.
If there will be an ITP about it in Debian I'll let you know and we can abort this, but unless that really happens I wanted to ask if you could as well build the libbpf* packages for 19.10 and onward?

Note: this is not the same bpf lib as [3] despite the similarity in names.

Reasoning:
BPF becomes more and more important in general and is used in the kernel for many things. In the case that brought it to my attention it will be a PMD of DPDK that will need it to control XDP [4]. And XDP in general is an interesting and rising feature for network acceleration - I'd think it would be helpful to have this package around in Ubuntu.

---

FYI here the package info from buster as of today
root@d10-buster:~# apt-cache show libbpf-dev libbpf4.19
Package: libbpf-dev
Source: linux
Version: 4.19.28-2
Installed-Size: 350
Maintainer: Debian Kernel Team <email address hidden>
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libbpf4.19 (= 4.19.28-2)
Description-en: eBPF helper library (development files)
 libbpf is a library for loading eBPF programs and reading and manipulating
 eBPF objects from user-space.
Description-md5: b8834dcec31d23cd9577fbae4ac6a867
Multi-Arch: same
Homepage: https://www.kernel.org/
Tag: devel::library, role::devel-lib
Section: libdevel
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/l/linux/libbpf-dev_4.19.28-2_amd64.deb
Size: 262268
MD5sum: 2ab356bbbc421ac44f4106b6cf234f17
SHA256: f567734a69bc472f2f5a546ace4ad3abf42d69f09d2613bca52a411d78179718

Package: libbpf4.19
Source: linux
Version: 4.19.28-2
Installed-Size: 318
Maintainer: Debian Kernel Team <email address hidden>
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.26), libelf1 (>= 0.131)
Description-en: eBPF helper library (shared library)
 libbpf is a library for loading eBPF programs and reading and manipulating
 eBPF objects from user-space.
Description-md5: 320aac663a5bd3caf223c7aa27857113
Multi-Arch: same
Homepage: https://www.kernel.org/
Tag: role::shared-lib
Section: libs
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/l/linux/libbpf4.19_4.19.28-2_amd64.deb
Size: 259924
MD5sum: bbb27965530e4101d43b7226fd563840
SHA256: 18fdf5da4a90c8f42dedb8db510324d09d28f11eb2fa1b364508b14a95d5179b

---

[1]: https://packages.debian.org/sid/libbpf-dev
[2]: https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf
[3]: https://github.com/iovisor/bcc
[4]: https://www.iovisor.org/technology/xdp

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

apport-collect makes no sense for this which is more a feature/packaging request, setting confirmed

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Due to some accident on bug 1826410 it was closed by scripts/automation every now and then.
To avoid this APW recommended to create a new bug and make the old bug a dup.
This was done and this is the clone that from now on shall be worked on without these stray updates.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Ping, what is up with this nowadays?

I'm still not seeing this in Focals kernels (but as mentioned before in Debian).

This blocks XDP support in DPDK for 20.04.
And most likely will make us need a Delta to Debian :-/

Therefore I wanted to ask if there is any update on this, a clear blocker so I can plan for "this will never happen" or an ETA that I can plan a merge of the new DPDK around?

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Ping for FF closing in and this holding back some DPDK functionality.
Any updates on getting this in time into 20.04?

[Joshua Powers (powersj)]

Is this something that we might still see for Focal or should we expect in 20.10?

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

We are working on dpdk 19.11.3 and it would finally be nice to get this delta resolved and XDP support in which required the libbpf I requested here (well actually in 1826410 you all know the story).

... ping ... :-)

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

We assigned Andy back in last summer as he was working/talking about it.
But I have the assumption here it might be the case that everyone else thinks "sure, this is on Andy I'll do nothing" and therefore overall nothing happens on this.

Also I have checked the org-chart again and since this is new kernel -dev for Groovy (It was Eoan and Focal, but I've given up on the past - let us focus only on the way forward) I think we'd better subscribe sforshe and fginther to this.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

In the meantime the Debian packaging was split and now comes from src:libbpf.
That in turn went into groovy and works well.

Thanks @fginther for making me aware.

This is done, I have closed the remaining tasks appropriately.